Droom enters electric vehicle space, revenue and losses shoot up

Online automobile marketplace Droom has partnered with players like Mahindra and Hero Electric to bring electric vehicles on its platform.

The electric scooters, available on the Droom's site, are priced between Rs 20,000-42,400, while the electric cars are priced in the range of Rs 8-13 lakh. The other partners of the company are Okinawa Scooters and YOBikes.

"The launch of this category is in line with the Indian government's focus on electric vehicles, keeping in mind their environmental benefits, contribution in reducing the economy's spends and their long-term cost-effectiveness," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal was quoted by PTI. “We have 670 electric vehicles listed with us. The number is bound to increase as more and more OEMs will be launching electric vehicles in the future," Aggarwal added.

Droom losses go up

Meanwhile, along with revenue Droom losses shot up this year. According to a RoC filing in possession of Entrackr, the company losses mounted to around 254 percent (Rs 50 crore). While it had registered jump of more than 100 percent (Rs 34 crore) in revenue, the company expenses surged to 170 percent (Rs 84 crore) this year. In 2015-16 fiscal year, its revenue was around Rs 17 crore, whereas total expenses were around Rs 31 crore.

The company will also provide cashback on the booking amount for all new bookings of electric vehicles. For now, the commission rates for Droom for electric vehicles is the same as petrol or diesel vehicles.

Earlier, Japanese auto major Yamaha told that they are conducting a feasibility study to evaluate the possibility of launching electric two-wheelers in India.

Droom early journey

Droom was founded in 2014. The online automobile marketplace offers a wide range of categories from bicycle to planes. Besides the platform provides other automobile services such as warranty, RSA, insurance and auto loan. It uses advanced technologies like de-facto pricing standard, full circle trust score, among others.

In Oct, it partnered with a fintech lender startup Qbera to offer financing options for buying second-hand or pre-owned cars and bikes on its platform.

Till date, the company has raised close to $65 Mn. The company is planning to raise a sum of $50 million in its sixth round of funding by 2018. The Gurugram-based firm has a team size of more than 270 people. It claims to have a market share of 65% in the automobile marketplace category. Droom is also eyeing an initial public offering (IPO) by mid-2019.