Interview:‘The Pandemic Has Been The Perfect Tailwind For Us'

Greg Moran, CEO of Zoomcar, on why it’s boom time for subscription-based mobility and getting business back to pre-Covid levels

- Rajiv Singh

If you have cycled into a headwind, then making the most of the tailwind becomes a lot easier. Nobody perhaps knows it better than Greg Moran, who zoomed into gusty headwinds the moment he co-founded Zoomcar, a selfdrive car rental platform, in 2013 in Bengaluru. To start with, there was an operational challenge. Zoomcar didn’t have a licence. Reason: The Contract Carriage Permit meant that the startup needed to have vehicles with yellow board licence plates. “But we didn’t have a fleet,” recalls Moran. There were other issues too. Zoomcar had raised seed funding, tied up with several carmakers, and Moran had put in all his savings. “It was a make-or-break situation,” he recounts. After navigating the existential crisis, came another one: Consumer mindset. “Car rentals were a completely unheard-of category when we started,” says Moran, chief executive officer of Zoomcar. The startup, subsequently, added heft to its operations by roping in marquee investors such as Mahindra & Mahindra, Ford Smart Mobility, Sequoia and Sony Innovation Fund.

Cut to 2020. After battling headwinds for four years, Moran found the perfect tailwind. While the pandemic has been challenging for people at a personal level, Zoomcar has fortunately been one of those businesses that has seen the tailwind, he points out. “I expect the boom time to continue for subscription-based mobility. We have seen a consistent 4-5x jump every week for the past three months,” he tells Forbes India. Edited excerpts:

Q The pandemic is the demonetisation moment for your business as shared mobility has taken a hit…