£20m funding boost for car subscription company Drover as demand grows

The company, which offers cars for a monthly payment for between one month and two years, reported a particularly strong performance during the Covid-19 pandemic. It claimed its year-on-year new subscriptions more than doubled in May and said it finished quarter two with “a record high revenue”.

It intends to use the new funds to scale up its operations in the UK, its home market, and France, where it launched earlier this year, focussing on its technology platform and national marketing campaigns.

Drover founder and chief executive officer Felix Leuschner (pictured) said: “The car market is one of the last retail categories that has yet to shift online, with online penetration of car sales being still below 1%, while 20% of all UK retail sales are now online.

“[The] digital ‘cars-as-a-service’ model is the right approach… as it lends itself much better to an online model than does the long-term commitment, high-ticket size type transaction of buying a car with cash or on finance.

“The need for a simpler, more flexible model for car ownership is only accelerating and we’re proud to be leading that journey in the UK and France and in hopefully many more markets in the future.”