CashURdrive, a three-month old start-p which was started with a seed capital of Rs 30 lakh is close to receiving Rs 2.5 crore in investments from VC Hunt and a Delhi-based media house.
Raghu Khanna, CEO, CashURdrive, commented, “While VC Hunt would have a majority stake in the startup, the media house would have only a minority stake and would help us in brand building and marketing.”
Raghu admits that the global slowdown has adversely affected his business, saying, “Our deal with a T.V giant got dropped because of the slowdown”.
CashURdrive focuses on advertising on private vehicles such as cars. It has a database of more than 14,000 car drivers registered with CashURdrive.com, out of which cars are selected for advertisements on the basis of the driver’s age, profession etc. In this way, CashURdrive ensures that the advertisement on the car reaches the target group. The cars are then wrapped in the advertisement vinyl and the driver is paid in petrol redemption cards worth Rs. 1500 to 5000.
CashURdrive currently earns a monthly turnover of Rs 840,000. By April 2009 it is expecting a monthly turnover of Rs 8400,000 by covering 10% of the total market share available. At present, the CashURdrive team is made up of six people, all under the age of twenty-five. The firm operates in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Bangalore and is soon to be launched in Bihar, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Gurgaon. Operations such as application of the vinyl and the printing are outsourced. Its clients include Virgin mobiles, Tata Indicom, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) and Speed. By December, campaigns for SBI and The Financial Chronicle are expected to be launched.