Bounce raises fresh funding to fuel electric vehicle integration, expansion

Bounce, a motorcycle and scooter sharing start-up, has raised a fresh $6.5 million funding from existing investor InnoVen Capital, Asia’s leading venture debt provider. This marks InnoVen Capital’s third investment in Bounce, in a span of 18 months, taking the total debt investment to $12 million, exclusively from the firm. Bounce said the new financing would fuel a deeper electric vehicle (EV) integration, multi-city expansion, platform play and help accelerate profitability. The new funding round comes after the company recently raised $105 million (Rs 750 crore) and the firm revealed plans to expand in this country and also get into markets abroad. That investment had more than doubled the company’s valuation, to over $500 million, from its previous funding round last June.

“InnoVen has backed our vision from very early days and been an incredible partner to work with,” said Vivekananda H.R, CEO and co-founder, Bounce. “As we expand to more cities and towns, we will transition to a diverse shared mobility platform to enable various mobility options as per the specific needs of each customer. The fund raised will help in realising these goals while we march towards profitability.”

Bounce was founded in 2014 by Vivekananda H.R., Anil G and Varun Agni, with a mission to provide consumers with a cost-effective micro-mobility solution for first and last-mile travel. The company currently operates a low-cost, dockless scooter rental model in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, with a total fleet of over 23,000 vehicles and clocking more than 130,000 rides a day.

“For India to unlock the next wave of growth, it is essential to solve the long-standing problem of urban transportation by scaling shared-mobility solutions,” said Ankit Agarwal, Director, InnoVen Capital India. “Bounce holds massive potential in playing a crucial role in this growth story.”

Scooter-sharing start-up Bounce plans expansion, eyes global foray

Bounce, a motorycle and scooter sharing start-up, which recently raised $105 million (Rs 750 crore), plans to expand in this country and also get into markets abroad.

“We have been successful in proving this is a solution that appeals to a very large population. Our efforts would be to scale up to 10-12 major cities and 100 smaller cities in the coming few quarters,” said Anil G, chief operating officer and co-founder. “We believe (tapping) smaller cities is a big opportunity, as they don’t have all the (transportation) facilities like in big cities.”

It is now in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, besides six smaller cities, including Mangaluru and Vijayawada. It now aims to enter Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and the NCR.

“We believe this kind of a solution can be deployed in multiple geographies. Though our main focus remains on India, we are definitely looking at cities outside of India as well where we see the potential for this kind of solution to exist, like in Europe and Southeast Asia,” said Anil. The $105 million was from a Series-D funding led by Accel, a leading venture capital entity, and B Capital Group, a global technology fund. Existing investors Accel Partners India, Chiratae Ventures, Falcon Edge, Maverick Ventures, Omidyar Network India,

Qualcomm Ventures and Sequoia Capital India also participated.

The investment more than doubles the company’s valuation, to over $500 million, from its previous funding round last June when the estimate was $220 million, according to sources.

The new funding, which takes the total raised to $194 million, will fuel a deeper electric vehicle (EV) integration and help drive profitability, said the company. Accelerating the adoption of EVs will push sustainable mobility and reduce the cost per km.

Another aim is to make its offerings form-agnostic or to tailor its mobility solution to the city or town it gets into. Besides multi-city expansion, the funds will also help access to technology more of skilled people. “The main vision of Bounce is to democratise mobility.

This fresh funding will help us,” said Vivekananda H R, chief executive and co-founder.

Founded in 2014, the start-up’s app allows users to take a vehicle and leave it at an approved parking spot. Bounce currently operates its dockless scooters in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, with 13,000 and 2,000 vehicles, respectively. It’s docked scooter rental service is available to commuters in 35 cities, it said, with a little more than 120,000 daily rides, making it one of the fastest-growing in shared mobility entities in the world. Each vehicle is said to do at least nine rides a day.

“The innovations around the keyless mechanism of using a scooter, coupled with other IoT (Internet of Things) modifications, make Bounce unique,” said Anand Daniel, partner at Accel.

The company said the biggest impact it is creating is enabling the usage of MRT (mass rapid transit), with 42 per cent of its rides starting or ending at a public transport hub. “Bounce achieved over 16 million rides in 2019 and has the potential to reach over 200 million customers across the country, with a highly engaged community of riders,” said Kabir Narang, co-head of Asia at B Capital Group.

After metro, Bounce's scooters to be available at railway stations

After metro stations, bike-sharing start-up Bounce is now driving into railway stations.

The Accel and Sequoia-backed company has won a competitive bid to provide its dockless scooter-sharing service at the railway stations in Karnataka. This makes it the first start-up to win such a deal.

The company will be able to expand its operations across 13 Bengaluru railway stations, helping passengers in the city with first and last-mile connectivity.

“With the load on road infrastructure, there is an urgent need to shift away from personal mobility to public transportation and shared mobility. To increase adoption of public transportation, it’s imperative to create integrated multimodal connectivity to make daily commute seamless,” said Vivekananda Hallekere, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder, Bounce.

“We’re happy to be working with the authorities such as Bengaluru Railway Division, which recognised the importance of shared mobility services and enabled us further to provide accessible mobility. This is happening for the first time ever in the country. We are positive that it’ll help lakhs of railway commuters with their first and last-mile commute.”

Through the partnership with the Bengaluru Railway Division, Bounce plans to introduce 698 scooters at 13 Bengaluru railway stations. Bounce scooters will make their debut at places such as Bellandur, Yelahanka, Banaswadi, Whitefield, Yeshwanthpur and Kengeri.

Parking lots have been allotted at two entrances in each of these stations to pick up or drop off Bounce bikes.

By providing bike service from the premise of railway stations, Bounce said it aims to improve connectivity and encourage citizens to use railway services.

Integration of hired, shared and public transport services will ensure all modes of commute complement each other and provide a seamless experience to citizens.

Since the last two years, there has been a significant increase in the number of people using the suburban rail service.

It is particularly popular among office-goers looking to avoid traffic.

This year, 1.5 lakh passengers opted to travel by the South Western Railway’s intracity trains, an increase from 1.4 lakh passengers in 2016-17.

According to a recent proposal by Rail India Technical and Economic Service (Rites), suburban trains are projected to have a total daily ridership of 9.28 lakh in 2025.

At a time when hours spent commuting has gone up because of traffic congestion, Bounce feels suburban railway acts as a cheap and fast alternative for the long commute.

However, the first and last-mile connectivity is still a critical issue. In Bengaluru, railways see lakhs of people coming in or going out of the city from various stations. The city’s fragmented transport system and evolving public transport impact a sizable number of these travellers. A recent survey showed that 70 per cent of citizens in Bengaluru felt the need for improving first and last-mile connectivity.

Bounce, which was recently valued at $500 million in a funding round, is scaling on a par with global players, including US-based scooter rental companies Lime and Bird.

The company has already partnered three Mass Rapid Transport systems – Namma Metro, Hyderabad Metro and Nagpur Metro. Within a year, 42 per cent of Bounce rides either originated or culminated at Namma Metro; around 40,000 of the nearly one lakh daily rides undertaken have been metro commuters.

The company operates in Bengaluru with 13,000 dockless scooters and has a presence in over 35 cities in the rental and docked model.

The start-up’s app allows the users to pick up a scooter and drop it at any legitimate parking spot. The bikes are enabled with the latest tech solutions like Bluetooth helmets, tilt and tow sensors. They also have features like global positioning system (GPS ) tagging, geo-fencing and sensors that alert the team in case of a crash or battery tampering.