Mahindra to acquire 16% stake in Zoomcar

Auto major Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) said on Friday it would invest upto Rs176 crore in Zoomcar India and its US holding company Zoomcar Inc, constituting to about 16 per cent stake in the US company.

Mahindra has been keen to invest in the shared mobility space as a part of its strategy to promote and participate in sustainable mobility solutions, including multimodal urban mobility.

Mahindra has been promoting electric vehicles along with the promotion of shared mobility.

This investment in India's leading self-drive shared mobility company will enable the company to further its objectives in this area, M&M said in a statement.

''At Mahindra, we are playing a pioneering role in the shared mobility business and are looking forward to an impetus in it through this investment in Zoomcar. We are confident that this partnership with Zoomcar will help further our vision to transform mobility in the country, thereby creating a more connected ecosystem,'' said Pawan Goenka, managing director at M&M.

Earlier in 2017, Mahindra and Zoomcar had announced a partnership to introduce electric vehicles into the shared mobility space. Zoomcar recently launched Mahindra e20Plus electric vehicles across Mysore, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Going forward it expects to add another 500 Mahindra EVs across more than 20 cities in India, in the first half of 2018, the release added.

''Our collaboration with Mahindra dates back to 2013 when we first kicked off in Bangalore. Most importantly, Mahindra shares Zoomcar's vision for multi-modal urban mobility and we look forward to leveraging their diverse platform to help accelerate the transformation to a shared, electric mobility future for India,'' Greg Moran, Co-Founder & CEO, Zoomcar said.

Zoomcar had introduced car-sharing services in 2013 and cycle-sharing in 2017.  Zoomcar allows users to rent cars by the hour, day, week, or month, while cycles can be rented in increments of 30 minutes.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Bangalore, Zoomcar operates in nearly 30 cities across India.