InstaCar Bags $1M Funding in Seed Round from Hongkong Investors
InstaCar – an online outstation taxi marketplace- based in Indore has bagged a seed round of $1 million from Honkong -based Swastika Co Ltd. This is the first foreign direct investment to a startup in Madhya Pradesh. Within two months of its launch this year, the startup has onboarded 500+ cars in Madhya Pradesh itself
These are some of InstaCar’s standardization features that make it stand out:
1. 15 Point check for each car and drivers.
2. Background Verification of drivers
3. InstaCar Availability and Confirmation.
4. One Way Optimization on maximum routes.
5. Transparency of Physical Actual Condition of Car.
6. Monthly Auditing of Cars
One of InstaCar’s biggest selling propositions is that only responsible drivers trained in quality customer service are allotted to drive these cars. “We provide on-the-go snack, water bottles, tissue papers etc to ensure that the customer feels comfortable,” shares Co-Founder Priyanshi Choubey.
“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 & 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,” shares Co-Founder Ishan Vyas.
“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 travelers, 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,” adds Ishan.
The founding team
InstaCar founders come with diversified backgrounds. Founder and CEO Ishan Vyas owns a web and mobile application development firm by the name of Aspricot having clients in 33 countries, InstaCar is his 2nd Venture. He comes from a technology background with huge experience in machine language processing.
Anurag Gupta is an IIM Kolkata alumnus and has an award-winning chain of salons by the name of Shear Genius. He brings in more than 20 years of experience in handling various business operations and has been instrumental in bringing robust processes to InstaCar.
Priyanshi Choubey is an MBA in eCommerce and brings in her deep understanding of technology from her three-year experience.
InstaCar chosen for its operations and business model
Investment company Swastika Co Ltd is based out of Hongkong and chose InstaCar for its robust process of operations and a diversified experience. “We all have run profitable businesses before that helped us bring in learning into InstaCar especially in terms of operations. We have an advanced technology that allows us to keep a seamless tracking to ensure that none of our trips goes empty along with a robust backend to enforce our quality parameters,” informs Ishan.
Instacar investment has brought Central India’s startup ecosystem into the notice of South Asian investors who have mostly funded startups in Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi.
