Uber leads $20 Mn round in Everest Fleet

Mobility startup Everest Fleet has closed a $20 million funding round led by the global ride hailing major Uber. Before this, the company had raised nearly $8 million in equity capital across three rounds.

The fresh proceeds will enable Everest Fleet to expand its operations and grow the overall supply pool available for the ridesharing industry where demand continues to outstrip vehicle supply, the company said in a press release.

The latest funding also marks Uber’s one of the first direct investments in an Indian startup. The ride-hailing giant was a shareholder in Zomato after the latter acquired UberEats’ operations in India in January 2020. Uber, however, completely exited Zomato in August 2022.

Last month, Uber partnered with EV firms Everest Fleet, Lithium Urban Technologies and Moove to deploy 25,000 electric cars in India via its platform over the next two years.

Founded in 2016, Everest Fleet operates in the shared mobility space in India and is an existing partner to ridesharing companies like Uber and Ola. As per the company, it is also Uber’s largest professionally managed fleet supplier in the country.

“This funding round will accelerate our transition from being a CNG-dominated fleet to one with CNG and electric vehicles in the next 5 years. By 2026, we aim to have 10,000 electric vehicles as part of our overall fleet,” Everest Fleet co-founder Siddharth Ladsariya said in a statement.

Everest Fleet currently employs over 10,000 drivers and is present in seven cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai. The company also aims to cover more Indian cities and eventually set up a global presence with the latest investment.

Everest Fleet demonstrated solid financial performance in the fiscal year ending March 2022. The company’s scale flourished 3.1X to Rs 113 crore during the same period compared to Rs 36 crore in FY21. Significantly, it also turned profitable and churned Rs 11.7 crore in profits in FY22 against Rs 1.97 crore loss in FY21.