Celebrate good times, c’mon!
If you haven’t yet noticed, Zoom has been getting a lot of positive media attention in the past week. We were recently featured in the Times of India, as well as the Economic Times, VentureBeat and Bangalore Mirror to name a few. We were also featured in Term Sheet, PE Hub, TechinAsia, and many others as well. For the past week, Zoom has been on the lips of every journalist in town … and for good reason.
So why has Zoom been getting so much media attention? Is it because of David Back’s page-a-day desk calendar of 365 insults that was sold to Barnes & Noble Publishing? Is it because Co-Founder Greg Moran claims he can eat 7-8 dosas in one try?! Pshh yea right!! [editor’s note: come to my office, Troy]. Is it because Zoom has grown from 7 vehicles at launch in February to 52 cars and 5 locations in less than 6 months!?
Although all of the above are true, the main reason for our recent publicity is that we have officially announced the close of our seed round of funding! After getting the attention of several investors from all over the world, we closed off the seed round of funding with some new additions, including San Francisco-based FundersClub, Basset Investment Group, with our earlier investor New York based Empire Angels stepping up to take the lead.
When asked why he is confident investing in an Indian Self-Drive company, Graham Gullens, founding Manager Director of Empire Angels, remarked “Many markets are saturated in the US with companies trying to solve niche market problems. Zoom has adopted a proven business model in bigger market.” American markets were over saturated, Greg and David became infatuated, they never procrastinated, and now they are being congratulated! (There’s my attempt at a freestyle rap). [editory’s note: now!]
The car rental industry is a $3 billion market in India, and self drive is the fastest growing segment of the Car-Rental space. In the last year alone, the market for self drive has risen 40%, making car sharing services increasingly more popular and attractive to foreign investors.
This attractive market has also led to the emergence of some new companies here in Bangalore. Uber, the San Francisco based chauffeur service which allows you to book a luxury vehicle like an Audi or a Mercedes in an instant through a sophisticated mobile app, has recently come to Bangalore. We’re happy to see them here, because it means there is a lot of serious interest in the Bangalore personal transportation space. We’re also happy because we’ve used their service in the US and in Bangalore, and we love it!
In the last six months we have now been featured on The Wall Street Journal’s India Blog, CNN Money, The Hindu, CNBC India, Forbes, and many others! We are very happy with this recent media coverage, and none of it would be possible without our fantastic customers who choose to embrace the Freedom of Four Wheels and Self-Drive with Zoom!
Thank you all … and now it’s time to celebrate!
Troy Erstling
IDEX Fellow in Social Enterprise
