Self-drive car rental firm Drivezy, previously known as JustRide, has raked up Rs 65 crore ($10 million) in fresh round of funding. The funding was led by part-equity and part-debt round, with American and Japanese investors investing $5 million through equity route. Another $5 million investment via debt round was made by consortium of Indian banks and NBFCs including Mahindra Finance & ICICI Bank.
With the latest round of funding, Drivezy has so far now raised $16.5 million (Rs 107 crore). The company, which currently offers services only in Bengaluru, has made amply clear that major part of the capital will be deployed to introduce bitcoin as the payment option for their customers.
Drivezy’s CEO Ashwarya Singh told a leading business newspaper that the company has already started accepting cryptocurrency like bitcoin for transactions on their platform and has so far recorded 150-160 bitcoin transactions.
Drivezy has collaborated with bitcoin wallet firm Unocoin to facilitate cryptocurrency transactions. The company has also introduced its Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to help global buyers in securing ownership of vehicles on their platform through bitcoin payments. For ICO, the company has joined hands with well-known Japanese payment firm Anypay.
Drivezy has taken a plunge in Bitcoin experimentation at a time when the debate over ‘legality of cryptocurrency’ is intensely raging on across the world. Last month, South Korea imposed complete ban on raising funds through all forms of virtual currencies. It became the second country, after China, to impose ban on ICOs. Globally, almost all prominent economies including India have warned investors against investing in ICOs.
Experts say that crust of the entire matter is that ICOs are not regulated by government body or regulators. This invariably makes ICOs vulnerable to shadowy investments & scams.