Singapore Based Drive Lah Raises US $3.2 Million In Pre-Series A Led By KFC Ventures
- ByStartupStory | July 23, 2021
Singaporean mobility startup Drive lah, which dubbed itself the “Airbnb for cars”, has raised a US$3.2 million pre-series A funding round led by KFC Ventures. Other participants include HH Investments VC and Accelerating Asia. HH Investments VC and Accelerating Asia are among the investors that participated in the round in addition to angel investors from home and abroad including industry expert and entrepreneur Robin Chase, co founder and former CEO of Zipcar, and author of Peers Inc.
Founded in 2019, Drive lah is like an Airbnb for cars – it brings together people who want to rent a car with owners that want to earn from their car when it is idle. Demand for flexible mobility is on the rise because owning a car in cities makes less sense due to increasing cost of ownership and increasing parking constraints. Millennials get this and are the primary driver of the shift from ownership to usership. “We started our journey in 2019 in Singapore, have more than 150,000 registered users on the platform, we have grown 10x since the first investors came on board late 2019 and acquired Smove – a fleet-based car sharing in Singapore last year,” said Gaurav Singhal co founder of Drive lah who adds, “The future looks exciting – the mobility market in Asia Pacific is huge and waiting to be disrupted. We recently launched in Australia and expect to expand further in the next 12 months. This is our first step in building a shared mobility ecosystem.”
Naveen Kumar, Managing Director of KFC Ventures says, “I strongly believe in the founders’ vision and their ability to make it happen. We see this as a strategic investment given our strengths in technology and data. There are tremendous synergies that we plan to leverage to realize this vision.” Drive lah co-founder Dirk-Jan ter Horst said, “Cars are idle 95 per cent of the time, so for owners, it makes sense to put this asset to use. Renters get unlimited access to nearby cars without the cost of owning one. Our proprietary in-car technology enables keyless access through your phone, and this makes it extremely convenient and safe for users. Moreover, it is 30-40 per cent cheaper than anywhere else.”
According to Drive lah‘s analysis, Singapore has a total of 11,520,548 underused car hours every day. Its P2P car-sharing concept can assist to improve the environment by more efficiently utilizing assets and, as a result, reducing the number of unused car hours.
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