Indian P2P car and bike-sharing platform Drivezy is accepting bitcoin as a method of payment and has announced an ICO for a P2P sharing marketplace after raising $10 million in funding.

Drivezy, a Y-Combinator-backed startup formerly known as JustRide, has just raised $10 million in a part-equity and part-debt round of fundraising. The platform has also begun accepting bitcoin for payments to capitalize on the growing popularity of the cryptocurrency in the country.

The $10 fundraising round sees $5 million in equity investments from Japanese and American investors including Das Capital, IT Farm, and Axan Partners. A further $5 million debt comes from a consortium of major Indian private banks and financiers.

Drivezy launched earlier in 2017 and now has a fleet of about 1,000 cars and 300 bikes across four Indian cities. The peer-to-peer vehicle sharing platform is now accepting bitcoin as a method of payment on its website and mobile applications, via a partnership with Indian bitcoin exchange Unocoin – the best-funded bitcoin startup in the country.

Co-founder and CEO Ashwarya Singh stated:

With the growing popularity of Bitcoin in India, we feel that this is the right time to open ourselves up to alternative means in the sharing economy.

Further, the platform has already “seen 150-160 transactions” through bitcoin, Singh told the Economic Times.

Private ICO

Further, Drivezy will also launch a private ICO in Japan with the support of Japanese FinTech AnyPay, an investor in the startup. The private ICO, only open to accredited investors subject to regulations, will enable Drivezy’s investors to purchase cryptographic tokens to gain a share of revenues generated by rental revenue on the platform.

According to Drivezy’s ICO portal, investors will purchase ‘RentalCoins’ to facilitate investment into a fleet of shared vehicles operated by the platform. 95% of the subsequent revenue from the rentals will go to investors, with the remaining 5% to Drivezy in the first week of each month. 12.6 million tokens are up for sale over two private offerings with a unit price of 0.00141 ETH.

CEO Ashwarya Singh added:

This ICO is part of our vision to leverage the power of the blockchain to build an open, secure and transparent technology to globalize the Indian car sharing marketplace. Rental coins can potentially create almost 10 lakh (1 million) micro-entrepreneurs who can supplement their household income by renting their assets.

Featured image from Shutterstock.