Narain Karthikeyan, who scripted historical past as the primary Indian to compete in Method One, is now making a mark within the realm of entrepreneurship. “Motor Racing is a group sport, and Method One is a really advanced enterprise,” stated Karthikeyan in an unique interview with Analytics India Journal, discussing how he shifted gears from motor racing to entrepreneurship.
Dubbed as ‘the Quickest Indian within the World’ by Autosport journal, Karthikeyan demonstrated his versatility by competing in numerous different racing sequence comparable to Le Mans Collection, NASCAR Whelen Euro Collection, and Tremendous Method championship.
From F1 to entrepreneurship
Born to a enterprise household in Coimbatore, Karthikeyan’s entrepreneurship journey started when he co-founded Leap Inexperienced Power, a renewable vitality startup in 2006. Nonetheless, the journey actually took off when he co-founded DriveX, an end-to-end inexpensive mobility platform in 2020.
“It’s all about cutting-edge know-how, agility, and innovation. I can relate very carefully to what I’m doing when it comes to our digital platform. The experiences that I’ve managed to build up over time by racing in Method One and different racing sequence and by working with a number of OEMs throughout the nation, have helped me an amazing deal. I believe the reference to the car ecosystem positively fuelled my ambitions,” he stated.
Karthikeyan, alongside together with his childhood buddy Christopher Sargunam,
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recognized that the Indian mobility is dominated by two-wheelers, and the annual quantity of two-wheelers transacted within the county is over 20 million. Nonetheless, the pre-owned two-wheeler market is extraordinarily unorganised, with organised gamers making up lower than 1% of the market. Thus, DriveX was born.
DriveX
Funded by TVS Motor, DriveX is an end-to-end inexpensive mobility platform. The corporate began as a two-wheeler subscription platform, offering inexpensive and versatile mobility options, and has since expanded to 5 cities in a brief span of time.
“Chris and I are childhood mates. Our frequent factors of dialog have all the time been about racing and enterprise/know-how. One such assembly in the course of the COVID lockdown ignited the spark of the concept after we shared the necessity for inexpensive mobility within the nation and the way know-how may play a job in bridging the hole,” stated Karthikeyan.
The founders of the startup, drawing upon their in depth expertise within the automotive, know-how, and BFSI industries, got down to create a revolutionary platform that addresses the precise wants of the inexpensive mobility sector in India. Their many years of experience in these fields allowed them to kind the corporate and develop this modern resolution.
“DriveX is a fully-integrated mannequin current throughout the pre-owned two-wheeler automobile worth chain, masking all core areas such because the procurement, refurbishment, and retailing of multi-brand automobiles.
“We wish to be the forerunners in bringing scalable know-how options to the pre-owned business to create an inclusive, clear ecosystem for all stakeholders. The imaginative and prescient for DriveX is to be the biggest pre-owned automobile platform on the earth,” Karthikeyan beamed.
The ability of AI/ML
At this time, within the altering technological panorama, it’s pivotal for a startup to be technology-first to remain aggressive and related out there. At this time, startups throughout a number of domains are levaring the ability of AI/ML and massive knowledge to scale.
“We imagine AI and ML have the potential to considerably impression the automotive e-commerce business by enabling extra personalised and environment friendly purchasing experiences for shoppers. DriveX makes use of ML algorithms to personalise the purchasing expertise for particular person shoppers,” he stated.
Explaining additional, Karthikeyan stated that that is achieved by personalising the product listings and proposals on the DriveX platform primarily based on each buyer’s distinctive choice, previous interactions, and so forth. “Any such personalisation helps enhance buyer expertise by offering extra related suggestions and lowering the effort and time required within the product discovery section,” he elaborated.
DriveX can be engaged on leveraging the potential of AI and ML to optimise the pricing and availability of merchandise in actual time. “For instance, machine studying algorithms might be used to analyse knowledge about client demand, availability, market pricing, and different such elements to find out the optimum value for a product. This sort of optimisation helps enhance the effectivity of the platform,” he stated.
Total, Karthikeyan believes that using AI and ML within the automotive e-commerce business has the potential to result in vital advantages. “Nonetheless, as a accountable organisation, we’re additionally extraordinarily cautious about potential moral and privateness considerations, as these applied sciences proceed to develop,” he concluded.
