With Ofo India's assets acquisition, Bounce enters nascent bike sharing segment

Chinese dockless bike sharing company Ofo, that shut down its India operation after a short stint, has finally found a bidder as its assets have been acquired by Bounce, a Bengaluru-based scooter sharing startup.

The Sequoia-backed startup has taken over Ofo's bicycles and some key employees. Ofo had shut its operations in July and had around 30 employees based out of India.

The financial deals in the acquisition could not be ascertained in the development first reported by YourStory.

The Alibaba-backed company launched its operation in the country in November last year and had deployed a decent number of GPS-enabled dockless bikes in cities such as Chennai, Indore, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Pune.

While cash-starved Ofo already said bye-bye to bikes sharing models in India, Australia, Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, and Israel, Bounce is eyeing an opportunity to solve last mile connectivity through its resources.

The four-year-old startup recently rechristened itself to Bounce from previous avatar Metro Bike. With this acquisition, it aims to leverage the existing infrastructure solve the pain point of 1km-2km distance through dockless bikes or electric bikes.

Having raised over $15 million risk capital from the likes of Accel Partners, Sequoia and debt financer InnoVen Capital, Bounce looks more confident than Mobike, Ola Pedal, Zoomcar PEDL, Mobicy, and Yulu.

As far as local players are concerned, they have deployed their bike sharing models in universities and within a small section or society of a city. They are yet to find a firm infrastructure to go ahead as Ofo and Mobike did in international markets.

In India, Meituan-owned Mobike is also not going smooth. The billion-dollar valued company, which is planning to expand its operation in the country had failed to meet the deadline to join Odisha government’s bicycle sharing initiative.

The state government under its smart city project was planning to launch the bicycle sharing facility for citizens before the Men’s Hockey World Cup, starting from November 28.

For Bounce, the opportunity is in galore but shoddy infrastructure remains a big challenge for the company.