Bajaj invests $8 Mn in Yulu; to manufacture customised e-scooters

Bicycle and electric scooter rental startup Yulu has raised $8 million in a funding round led by Bajaj Auto. The Bengaluru-based startup was in talks to raise a fresh round from Bajaj for the past five months that may go up to $15-20 million.

As part of the deal, Bajaj will manufacture customized electric scooters for Yulu and will offer vehicle finance via its financial services company - Bajaj Finserv.

With the latest round, Yulu plans to increase its fleet size to 100,000 electric two-wheelers by December 2020. Currently, it has 15,000 electric scooters across Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, and some limited areas of Bhubaneshwar and Delhi.

Backed by the likes of Blume Ventures, Binny Bansal, Naveen Tewari, and Girish Mathrubootham, Yulu solves micro-mobility challenges in the cities they are in now.

Yulu offers two ride vehicles: a lithium powered scooter, Yulu Miracle, that can go up to 25 km top speed and a smart bike - Yulu Move. The company claims to receive 30,000-35,000 rides daily, of which 12,000-13,000 come from its e-scooters, reports ET.

In May, Yulu had tied up with Uber to allow users to book a cab through latter's mobile app. According to Entrackr's sources, Uber may also invest in Yulu.

Founded by Amit Gupta, RK Misra, Naveen Dachuri and Hemant Gupta, the company has also been working with corporates and metro authorities to help them in last mile public transport services.

Yulu will leverage Bajaj as an Original Equipment Manufacturer or OEM to build hardware for charging and make it anti-theft and IoT-enabled.

Apart from Yulu, the last-mile commute segment via bicycle and e-scooters has seen some notable players such as Zoomcar’s Pedl, Ola’s Pedal and Mobicy.

Of late, heavily funded Vogo and Bounce are exploring the segment with a decent presence of e-scooter fleet. Both are keen to invest a huge sum to grow the numbers of e-scooters to corner a significant market share.