Lane steers $1M pre-seed from Kae Capital to take driving school beyond Bengaluru

Lane, a Bengaluru-based tech-enabled driving education and mobility platform, has raised $1M in pre-seed funding led by Kae Capital. DeVC, Antler India, Panthera Peak and a set of angel investors also participated in the round.

The company, which launched in January 2025, runs structured driving lessons alongside end-to-end RTO and licensing support and a driver intelligence platform. It has also begun offering car purchases and other mobility-related services to its learners — nearly 60% of whom have expressed an intent to buy their first car, according to the company.

Lane said the fresh funds will go toward geographic expansion, specifically scaling its instructor network across Bengaluru and into other Tier 1 cities. Part of the capital is earmarked for building sensor technology and for expanding into car ownership services.

The pitch rests on a safety problem that India has struggled to move. Citing a market report, Lane points out that more than 1.7 lakh people die in road accidents in India every year — roughly 20 people every hour. The country holds about 1% of the world's vehicles but accounts for nearly 11% of global road deaths.

Lane claims to have delivered more than 30,000 hours of driving instruction to over 3,100 learners in 18 months. Its safety-focused approach was developed through more than 400 hours of pilot classes, with input from automobile researchers. The company assesses instructors across 15 driving parameters, including through simulated lessons.

The broader sector remains relatively fragmented, with technology adoption spanning driving education, professional driver services, fleet management and mobility. DriveU, for instance, uses technology to connect car owners with trained and verified drivers and claims to have completed more than 5 million drives and served over 7 lakh car owners.

Elsewhere in mobility, Milo Drive recently raised $2.4 million in seed funding from Caret Capital, Antler India, IAN Capital and others, while River Mobility raised $120 million in Series C funding in August 2026.

Funding specifically focused on driving education remains relatively limited in India, even as the wider mobility sector continues to attract capital across driver services, fleet technology and EV mobility — a gap Lane is betting its instructor network and licensing stack can fill.