Drover picks up £5.5M funding for its car subscription marketplace
Summary
Founded by Felix Leuschner (CEO) and Matt Varughese (CTO) in late 2015 and subsequently launched the following January, Drover has built what it describes as a Mobility-as-a-Service platform, giving you access to a car wrapped up in a single monthly subscription.In addition, users can swap, upgrade or downgrade their car monthly or just cancel altogether, without any long-term commitment or steep upfront payments, says the startup.More broadly, Drover says it is hoping to tap into macro trends of the sharing economy, which affords an asset-light and on-demand lifestyle (yes, really!).The startup has elected to operate a marketplace model, too, meaning that it doesn’t own any cars or have to shoulder the capital cost of inventory.“Why should consumers actually own a car or lease it for a long period of 3 or 4 years in the times of sharing economy, desire for high flexibility, and fast innovation cycles in the automotive industry?