Bounce Raises More Funding From InnoVen For EV Expansion

Bengaluru-based dockless bike rental startup Bounce has announced raising $6.5 Mn from InnoVen Capital in the latest round of venture debt funding. Overall, InnoVen Capital has invested $12 Mn in venture debt in Bounce over three rounds in the last 18 months.

The company plans to use this funding to add more electric vehicles (EVs) to its fleet, expand into new regions and expand its areas of operations.

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

Prior to this, Bounce had raised $105 Mn (INR 746.33 Cr) from Accel Partners and Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin-led B Capital Group. Sequoia Capital India, Chiratae Ventures, Maverik Ventures, Falcon Edge, Qualcomm Ventures and Omidyar Network India had also invested in the round.

B Capital and Accel Partners (Both India and USA) had also participated in Bounce’s Series C funding round. In the round, the company raised $72 Mn from investors like Falcon Edge Capital, Chiratae Ventures, Maverick Ventures, Omidyar Network India, Sequoia Capital India and Qualcomm Ventures.

In 2019, even Flipkart cofounder Sachin Bansal’s BAC Acquisitions invested $4.45 Mn in debt in Bounce across two rounds. First, Bansal invested $3 Mn in March and $1.45 Mn in July.

Founded in 2014 by Vivekananda HR, Varun Agni and Anil G, Bounce is a bike rental service that provides premium motorcycles for rent under the brand name Wicked Rides and commuter bikes under the Bounce brand. The company was previously known as Metro Bikes. The company offers premium bikes such as Enfields, Harley-Davidson, Triumph, Ducati, Kawasaki, KTM and others for rent across India.

Bounce aims to solve the last-mile connectivity problem in India by allowing users to pick up scooters from nearby locations and then drop them at the end-trip spot. InnoVen Capital India’s director believes that Bounce has the potential to solve this “long-standing problem” of urban transportation by scaling its shared-mobility solutions.

Bounce charges users on the bases of the time and distance and claims to have over 23K keyless scooters in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Out of these, 20K Vehicles are in Bengaluru and 3K in Hyderabad.

The company claims to offer its dockless scooter rental services in over 35 cities. Last year, the company also spoke about wanting to expand its fleet to include more than 50K scooters.

In the second quarter of the financial year 2020, the company had registered over 2 Mn rides. Overall, the company claims to have registered more than 16 Mn rides since launch. Besides this, it said it has completed over 130K (1.3 Lakh) rides per day with a majority of them coming from Bengaluru.