Uber is deepening its reliance on large Indian fleet operators. In the latest round of financing, this ride-hailing platform invested $10 million in Indian fleet management startup Carrum Mobility, pushing the latter's post-investment valuation to 16 billion rupees, which is approximately $168 million.
Valuation has significantly increased compared to the beginning of the year.
The founder and CEO, Karan Jain, stated that Uber invested $7 million in the company in January of this year. At that time, the post-investment valuation was approximately 6 billion rupees, which is about $63 million. According to the latest round of financing, Uber currently holds a stake in Carrum that has reached the "tens of percentage points" range.
Carrum was founded in 2024 by Jain. Prior to that, the car rental company Revv he founded was acquired in 2023 by the Indian car trading platform CarDekho, which was also Carrum's first investor and remains one of its shareholders to this day.
The fleet has covered six Indian cities.
Carrum currently has around 5,100 vehicles in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, and Kolkata, and has employed over 18,000 drivers. Jain states that the company's current annual revenue is approximately 4.3 billion rupees, which is about 45 million US dollars.
Carrum mainly supplies vehicles to Uber's platform in India, covering Uber Go, Premier as well as high-end services Black. Approximately 70% of these vehicles are hatchbacks intended for Uber Go, around 10% are sedans used by Premier, and about 20% are SUV models primarily deployed in Uber Black. According to Jain, Carrum has become Uber Black's largest fleet partner in India.
Plans to expand to 11,000 units in the coming year
Unlike individual drivers who purchase cars on their own or take out loans to do so, large fleet operators can deploy thousands of vehicles onto the platform at once and are responsible for driver recruitment and training. Jain indicates that Uber Black currently relies entirely on its fleet partners in India for operations, in order to manage vehicle, driver, and service standards more strictly.
For the fiscal year ending March 2026, Carrum reported revenue of approximately 2.33 billion rupees, a significant increase from about 620 million rupees the previous year; net profit also rose from around 35 million rupees to about 70 million rupees. In the next 12 months, the company plans to more than double its fleet size to around 11,000 vehicles, and will use the new funds to enter more cities, improve its technical platform, and continue with recruitment efforts.
