Uber leads $20m round for India’s Everest Fleet
Uber has led a USD 20m round for India’s Everest Fleet, an existing VC-backed partner in the local taxi management service space that is transitioning into electric vehicles.
Patni Family Office, InCred Capital, Spark Capital, and Grip Invest also participated, according to VCCircle. Existing investors include Artha Venture Fund, Rockstud Ventures, and Param Capital.
Everest offers 24-hour fleet operation services on a B2B basis, partnering with both Uber and its homegrown counterpart Ola. Ola has been pursuing an aggressive electrification agenda, having received about USD 1bn since 2019.
“This funding round will accelerate our transition from being a CNG [compressed natural gas]-dominated fleet to one with CNG and electric vehicles in the next five years. By 2026, we aim to have 10,000 electric vehicles as part of our overall fleet," Everest co-founder Siddharth Ladsariya said.
Everest’s core value proposition to date has been in the identification of gaps in the largely unorganised local taxi aggregating industry, especially in the form of vehicle utilisation rates. It estimated the industry was averaging a utilisation rate of only 40% and set a target of 80%.
The app is said to facilitate end-to-end fleet management, including fuel bills submissions, payout reports, and trip reports. There are also functions for tracking ongoing offers and monitoring the best performers in the fleet. It has been downloaded more than 10,000 times since the company’s inception in 2016.
Similar operators in this space include LocoNav, which received a USD 37m round featuring Sequoia Capital India and former executives of Uber. That investment coincided with a USD 150m round for Netradyne featuring SoftBank Vision Fund II. Softbank Group is also an investor in Ola Electric.
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