Drivezy

Coordinates: 12°58′31″N 77°37′18″E / 12.975400°N 77.621620°E / 12.975400; 77.621620

Drivezy
Formerly called
 JustRide (2015-2017)
Private
Industry Car rental, Transport
Founded April 2015 (2015-04)
Mumbai, India
Founder Ashwarya Pratap Singh, Abhishek Mahajan, Hemant Sah, Vasant Verma, Amit Sahu
Headquarters Bengaluru, India
Area served
 Mumbai, Thane, Bangalore, Pune, Mysuru
Key people
 Justin Kan (investor), Anupam Mittal (investor), Paul Buchheit (investor)
Services Self drive car rental, car leasing, Bike rentals
Number of employees
 150
Website drivezy.com

Drivezy, formerly JustRide, is a marketplace for self-drive cars and two-wheeler rentals, headquartered in the city of Bangalore, Karnataka. Launched in April 2015, the company went by the name Justride and served as an aggregator in the carsharing space. In July 2017, the company underwent a rebranding exercise and shifted focus to the marketplace model. Drivezy started featuring motorcycles and scooters on its platform in the same month. As of July 2017, the company operated 880 cars and 250 two-wheelers on its platform with services in 5 cities across India including Mumbai, Thane, Bangalore, Mysore and Pune[1].[2][3] Drivezy was one of the 3 Indian companies selected by Y Combinator for the 2016 summer batch. Back then it went by the name JustRide.[4][5]

History

2015-16: Founding and incorporation

The company was initially branded as JustRide and founded in April 2015 by Ashwarya Pratap Singh, Hemant Sah, Vasant Verma and Amit Sahu, all alumni of Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad and Abhishek Mahajan of Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.[6] JustRide was conceptualised when Ashwarya and his friends lost their newly purchased Ford Figo in an unfortunate accident.[7] Starting off as a luxury car rental service with 8 cars,[8] JustRide adopted the aggregator model. The company dry leased cars from licensed operators. The cars were in turn micro-leased to people on an hourly basis. [2]

2016-17: Marketplace

In March 2016, the company launched a marketplace platform, allowing individual owners to list their cars.[1] In July 2017, JustRide was rebranded as Drivezy. The company also adopted a new logo and cited that the new identity complemented its transition to a marketplace platform. Drivezy opened its platform to two-wheelers (motorcycles and scooters) in the same month.[1]

Growth

Drivezy commenced country wide services in August 2015 with simultaneous launches in Bangalore, Pune and Gurgaon. Services were launched in Noida and Navi Mumbai in October 2015. In the same month, the company commenced testing its in-house Smart Vehicle Technology (SVT) which taps into a car's OBD system and provides real time updates on the vehicle's location and performance parameters ranging from fuel consumption, tire pressure, to the g-force experienced by car's suspension.[6] Drivezy was selected by Google for the maiden batch of the Launchpad Accelerator program in January 2016. [9] Under Google's mentorship, the company piloted a carsharing platform which enabled people to rent their idle cars when.


Drivezy was selected by the American startup accelerator Y Combinator for the 2016 summer batch.[10] Drivezy was one of the 44 startups that presented on the Day 1 of the YC Demo on 23 August 2016.[11] In June 2017, the company introduced bikes on their platform.Working on C2C model, Drivezy started with 250 motorcycles and scooters in Bangalore.[12]

Products and services

Car Sharing

Drivezy is primarily a car sharing platform where customers can rent cars on an hourly or daily basis. The company aggregates cars from licensed operators which it classifies as vendors.[13] In March 2016, the company announced the launch of a peer-to-peer car sharing platform which let individual owners rent their vehicles to urban commuters.[14]

Two Wheeler Rentals

Drivezy introduced motorcycles and scooters on their platform in 2017. Working on C2C module akin to its carsharing platform, the company launched the service in Bengaluru. [15]

Smart Vehicle Technology

Smart Vehicle Technology or SVT in short is an in-house product developed by Drivezy for the purpose of scaling the company's car sharing business. SVT makes use of a car's on-board diagnostics (OBD) and Global Positioning System to relay performance parameters such as tire pressure, fuel consumption, and vehicle location to a central server. The data is used to keep track of vehicles and schedule repairs accordingly.[16]

Corporate affairs

Management and staff

Drivezy's founding team serves as the key managerial staff for the company; Ashwarya Pratap Singh, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer;[17] Abhishek Mahajan, Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer; Hemant Sah, Chief Technology Officer;[2] Vasant Verma, Chief Operating Officer and head of marketing[18] and Amit Sahu, head of research and development and supply chain.

In February 2016, Bharat Palani Nathan, who previously served as the COO with business rival Zoomcar joined Drivezy as executive director of operations.[19]

Location and headquarters

The company is headquartered in Bangalore and has operational offices in Mumbai, Mysuru, Thane and Pune.[8]

Business model

Drivezy is a marketplace platform where car rental operators with a rent-a-cab license can on-board their vehicles. The company rents cars to its customers without owning any cars itself. As of December 2015, Drivezy hosted 350 cars from 16 vendors. The company operates on a sale and lease back model which is similar to the Indian low-cost airline Indigo.[3] In March 2016, Drivezy started diversifying to a market place model, allowing private owners to enlist their cars. [20]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "JustRide Transition From Aggregator To Marketplace; Rebrands As Drivezy". inc42.com. Retrieved 2017-07-14.
  2. 1 2 3 "Car rentals aggregator JustRide raises $2 m in bridge funding". The Hindu Business Line. Retrieved 2015-12-23.
  3. 1 2 "City startup rushes to the rescue of rent-a-car firms". The Hindu. 2015-12-31. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2016-01-01.
  4. ↑ "Silicon Valley accelerator YC picks 3 Indian startups for first time - Times of India". Retrieved 2016-08-17.
  5. ↑ "Y Combinator floored by founders' 'personal experiences', bets big on these three startups - The Economic Times". Retrieved 2016-08-24.
  6. 1 2 "JustRide: Advancing The Future of Car Rentals with Smart Vehicle Technology! - TechStory". TechStory. Retrieved 2015-12-23.
  7. ↑ "An Unfortunate Accident Gave Birth To JustRide". Business World. 2015-12-30.
  8. 1 2 "Justride.in Gives you chance to Ride Luxury cars in India". Bizztor. Retrieved 2015-12-23.
  9. ↑ "Google Developers - Launchpad Accelerator | About". developers.google.com. Retrieved 2015-12-25.
  10. ↑ KJ, Shashidhar (2016-07-11). "Y Combinator selects three startups from India". MediaNama. Retrieved 2016-08-17.
  11. ↑ Constine, Josh; Matney, Lucas; Mannes, John. "All 44 startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 1". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-08-24.
  12. ↑ "justride is Now drivezy". businesswireindia.com. Retrieved 2017-07-15.
  13. ↑ "Wanna rent a BMW? Go JUSTRIDE!! | Pixr8". Pixr8. Retrieved 2015-12-23.
  14. ↑ "Startup helps steer gains from your car - Bangalore Mirror". Retrieved 2016-08-17.
  15. ↑ "Self-drive car rental firm Drivezy to use bikes". Retrieved 2017-01-26.
  16. ↑ "Self Drive Car Rental Startup JustRide Raises $2 Mn - Inc42 Magazine". Inc42 Magazine. Retrieved 2015-12-23.
  17. ↑ "Tech in Asia - Connecting Asia's startup ecosystem". www.techinasia.com. Retrieved 2016-01-01.
  18. ↑ "Google Selects JustRide For Its Launchpad Programme". BW Businessworld. Retrieved 2016-01-01.
  19. ↑ "Bharath PN, former COO of Zoomcar moves to JustRide as executive director of ops - The Economic Times". The Economic Times. Retrieved 2016-02-13.
  20. ↑ "Self-drive car rental firm Just-Ride soon to use bikes on its platform - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 2017-07-30.
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