<article>The founder of self-driving car startup, <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=zoomcar" target="_blank">Zoomcar</a>, is planning to raise at least $25 million this year from existing and new investors.</article>

The founder of self-driving car startup, <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=zoomcar" target="_blank">Zoomcar</a>, is planning to raise at least $25 million this year from existing and new investors.
Greg Moran, co-founder &amp; chief executive officer, told DEALSTREETASIA that this would be a series C round, to be closed in the next few months.
&#8220;We are the largest player, and are profitable in some of the cities we operate in. That resonates with investors at a time when there is more focus on profitability, cost efficiency and unit economics,&#8221; Moran said.
Bangalore-based Zoomcar is India&#8217;s first self-drive car rental company. Customers can rent by the hour, day, week or for an entire month. Its range of vehicles range from hatchbacks and SUVs to luxury sedans.
Zoomcars has a fleet of 2,000 cars, the largest in the country with operations in 7 cities. It plans to increase that to about 8,000, and expand to 15 more cities.
&#8220;Obviously growth is important but not at the expense of sacrificing everything else. We’ve always been more conservative in that sense. We wanted to build a business instead of an acquisition engine. We never spent a lot of money on marketing. Much of it is organic, word of mouth,&#8221; Moran said.
The company last raised $11 million from <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=Sequoia+Capital">Sequoia Capital</a>, <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=Empire+Angels">Empire Angels</a> and <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=NGP">NGP</a> in July. In 2014, it had raised $8 million from Sequoia with participation from Mohandas Pai, and Abhay Jain, head of corporate affairs at Manipal Group, among others.
Competition has increased since the time Moran, an American citizen, started the company. <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/27549-27549/" target="_blank">Carzonrent</a>&#8216;s self-drive service Myles has expanded quickly to 1,000 cars. <a style="color: #000080;" href="https://www.google.co.in/#q=Selfdrive.in" target="_blank">Selfdrive.in</a>, that operates in Mumbai, Pune and Goa, has more than doubled its fleet. Zoomcar is still way ahead in terms of number of cars.
&#8220;On weekends every car is booked. We are not even close to satisfying the demand of this huge market,&#8221; said Moran.
The Indian car rental market will exceed Rs 800 billion by 2019, assuming that it continues to grow at a consolidated rate of 20 per cent or higher rate every year, according to Ken Research.
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The founder of self-driving car startup, Zoomcar, is planning to raise at least $25 million this year from existing and new investors. 

India: Zoomcar plans more than $25m in Series C funding this year

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India: Zoomcar plans more than $25m in Series C funding this year

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