Taxi rental co InstaCar raises $1 million from Swastika

Moneycontrol BureauTaxi rental marketplace InstaCar has raised USD 1 million in seed funding from Hong Kong-based Swastika Co Limited. The investment also marks the first foreign direct investment into Madhya Pradesh’s startup ecosystem.

“India currently is flooded with taxi and rickshaw aggregators within cities while Ola recently launched its outstation services, but the solutions we are offering like choice of car make and model selection, actual photographs, background-check of drivers, luggage carrier, pet-friendly cars, etc are the differentiators and is probably a unique business model in India as well as global market,” InstaCar Co-founder Ishan Vyas said in a statement.

After having a fleet of 500 cars in Madhya Pradesh, the startup now plans to launch its service across eight more regions in India.

“This is a market which has existed since past 100 years. People have specific requirements with outstation rented cars. Look at this market – there are business travelers, leisure travellers, college and office groups, families, couples, solo travelers, medical tourists and so on. Since the biggest share in the Indian ecommerce space is that of travel aggregators, we knew outstation taxi market is a gold mine,” Ishan added.