With $100 Mn investment in Vogo, Ola enters scooter rental segment

Cab-hailing major Ola has invested $100 million (mix of equity and debt financing) in scooter sharing startup Vogo. The Bhavish Aggarwal-steered company already offers 'Ola Bike' and this strategic partnership will catapult the company's plan to move into the dockless scooter sharing model.

The investment will help the Bengaluru-based startup to acquire 100,000 new scooters. On the other hand, existing 150 million customers of Ola will be able to rent Vogo's scooters through its app.

Ola, which has already invested in Vogo will hold around 35-40 per cent stake in the latter. Previously, Stellaris Venture Partners and Matrix Partners India, Hero MotoCorp Chairman Pawan Munjal’s family office and Taxifosure founder Aprameya Radhakrishna have also invested in the firm.

Founded in 2016 by Anand Ayyadurai, Padmanabhan Balakrishnan, and Sanchit Mittal, Vogo provides scooters on rent for short one-way trips with over 200 pick up points across Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

The startup claims to have completed 100,000 rides and gathered more than 400,000 users who commuted a distance of 20 million km using its fleet.

To ramp up its presence in micro-mobility and end-to-end transportation market, Ola had brought real-time information and tickets booking app Ridlr on its platform and has been rolling out dockless bicycles in several universities and residential societies.

Looking at the way Ola has done in the past few years to keep its rival at bay, a full-fledged acquisition of Vogo in the future can't be ruled out. Notably, Ola competes with Uber on several fronts including bike-hailing segment.

Sequoia and Accel-backed Bounce, Wheelstreet, and ONN Bikes also offer full-stack bike on rent/sharing facility.

The development was reported by ET.