Bike Bazaar Bags $10 Mn Funding To Penetrate Into Rural India

Online two-wheeler financing and marketplace startup Bike Bazaar has raised an additional $10 Mn (INR 82 Cr) in funding from DEG, the investment arm of German state-owned development bank KfW.

With this, Bike Bazaar has closed its Series D equity funding round under which it has so far raised INR 250 Cr ($30 Mn) from multiple marquee investors, including Women World’s Banking Asset Management (WAM), Elevar Equity, and Faering Capital.

Speaking with Inc42, Bike Bazaar’s cofounder and managing director Srinivas Kantheti said that the startup will use the funding to penetrate deeper into rural India and to shore up its EV vertical. The company will also use the capital to scale up its marketplace business, especially with regards to its tech stack. 

“We at Bike Bazaar are proud to be ushering two-wheeler financing into a new era of hyper-growth and this round is testimony to our performance… Bike Bazaar is doubling down on electric two-wheeler financing by offering unique products including leasing and rental solutions especially for last-mile delivery in the ecommerce & food-delivery industry. We would like to thank DEG and all our other investors for their continued vote of confidence,” added Kantheti. 

Member of DEG’s management board Monika Beck said, “With our financing, we are supporting the growth of a pioneering financial institution so that it can continue to drive financial inclusion amongst underserved demographics, especially females and small medium enterprises. Furthermore, we are specifically excited at the opportunities in the electric mobility space in India, which form a core part of Bike Bazaar´s strategy going forward.”

Including the current round, Bike Bazaar has raised INR 482 Cr in equity funding since its inception.

Interestingly, this comes five months after the Pune-based startup announced that it had raised INR 170 Cr in equity funding from multiple investors. In September 2022, the company announced that it had secured INR 250 Cr in debt funding from several banks and financial institutions. 

The brainchild of Kantheti and Karunakaran Vadakkepat, Bike Bazaar was founded in 2017. It offers a full-fledged marketplace dedicated solely to two-wheelers. While, on the one hand, the startup operates a marketplace that allows users to sell and buy bikes, it, on the other hand, has a fintech vertical that allows customers to finance two-wheelers.

With more than 1,200 touchpoints in 140+ cities, Bike Bazaar claims to be well placed to leverage the burgeoning two-wheeler market in the country. 

So far, the startup has disbursed more than 3.75 Lakh two-wheeler loans. It had a cumulative disbursement of more than INR 2,000 Cr at the end of December, 2022. 

Bike Bazaar claims to be well-poised to achieve assets under management (AUM) of INR 1,000 Cr by the end of financial year 2022-23 (FY23).