Can Yulu Ride The Gig Economy’s Need For Speed All The Way To Profitability?

“Consumers want it now, they want it fast. After Indian consumers have once tasted the experience of quick delivery of not just products, but also services, they’re not looking back again,” says Yulu cofounder and chief executive Amit Gupta.

The growing demand for quick doorstep service providers – from Urban Company to Snabbit and Pronto – is the next big wave powering Yulu’s mobility business, he adds. 

Having already ridden the highs of food delivery and then the ongoing quick commerce wave, the electric mobility-as-a-service provider is now preparing for its next phase of growth with demand for quick services.

The rise in quick commerce gave Yulu a big push in terms of growth till last year, but the new quick services boom in 2025 has given the company more momentum. Overall, India’s gig economy is estimated to have 23.5 Mn workers by 2029-30, with several requiring mobility services and solutions to ply their trade.

The new category focus gives Yulu a strategic edge over the likes of Zypp, Bounce, and Baaz, which are directly competing for the same pie. The fact that the brand has been around since 2017 is another edge for the company.

Besides the quick services market focus, there is a foray into the high-speed electric scooter segment. 

Incidentally, in 2023, Yulu wanted to go beyond mobility services and sell its scooters directly. It launched the Yulu Wynn to enter this segment, but couldn’t scale this business.

The company has now launched Yulu Express to strengthen its rental service business for gig economy workers. This is a 45 kmph bike, which is quite a shift from the company’s earlier focus on low pricing and convenience over performance. 

So, where is Yulu right now when it comes to growth vis-a-vis its evolving business model? We dived deeper to unravel what exactly has changed at Yulu in the past one year and how consumer behaviour is shaping its evolution.

Yulu Goes From Joyrides To Gig Workers 

Since its inception, Yulu has been synonymous with low-speed mobility. Starting with bicycles, the company became a household name in metros, and its signature blue bikes were seen everywhere before too long.

Because of the small form factor, many never took the company too seriously — are they serious or just toys on wheels, they asked. The fact that electric bicycle rental companies were failing did not help Yulu’s cause, examples being LightSpeed, Pedl, LetzCycle, Mobicy, Ola Pedal and even China’s Ofo.  

Regardless of jokes, Yulu grew nonetheless. It captured the growing demand for urban last-mile mobility and directly served commuters until the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Then came the pivot, or rather a forced transition to last-mile delivery because of the rise of the convenience economy and essential deliveries. 

Prior to this, the gig economy was never a direct focus for Yulu. It was more geared towards solving the problem of last-mile connectivity for commuters in metros. 

Today, naturally, most of Yulu’s revenue comes from gig workers across platforms like Swiggy, Zomato, Zepto, Blinkit, because scaling a B2C-scooter rental business is simply too capital-intensive. 

Nowadays, a typical delivery worker rents out a Yulu bike in lieu of a subscription fee — regardless of their actual use case. A delivery worker or service professional can sign up for weekly and monthly subscription plans, which can range from INR 1,200 to INR 7,300, and ride a Yulu scooter for 400 Km to 3,600 Km, depending on their subscription.

Gupta says the need for speed is everywhere, even among existing quick commerce delivery executives, which is why Yulu Express makes sense now and complements its existing go-to-market strategy. The startup claims that its new bikes have a certified range of 100 Km and can carry a payload of up to 150 Kg.

“Earlier, we were not catering to the segments like ecommerce, bike taxis, and platforms like Porter and others. But now we have scooters that can are better suited for these purposes,” says Gupta, adding that even if quick commerce reaches a saturation point, Yulu can target other allied segments. 

“There is no dearth of demand in these segments; there is a major supply crunch.”

Franchises Added To The Mix

Adding a higher-speed bike allows Yulu to also target consumer rentals, especially as it expands through the franchise model. This means Yulu can cater to the expansion drive of existing quick commerce and professional services platforms.

The move from a completely company-owned company-operated (CoCo) model to a hybrid franchise-owned franchise-operated (FoFo) model happened over the past 15 months. The shift has allowed the company to add to its geographical presence and brand recall at almost zero operating cost, like any franchise model does.

Franchise partners buy scooters from Yulu and rent them for gig workers on a subscription basis or for consumer rentals. Currently, 10-15% of its revenue comes from franchisees, who pay a monthly commission along with the initial setup fees.

“The assets and earnings are not on Yulu’s books. It is a good GTM for us in many smaller pockets of the country, such as Surat or Raipur, while keeping the opex in check,” the CEO claims.

Franchises are currently present in Kolkata, Indore, and Kochi, with the COCO model being used in Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Hyderabad.

The Crucial Question: Profitability 

The shift to franchises, the new scooter launch, the focus on non-delivery gig workers with quick services platforms like Urban Company, Snabbit, Pronto, Yes Madam and others. These additions to Yulu’s repertoire will hold it in good stead in the long run. But can the company actually turn a profit year after year and scale up without reinvesting all its profits?

For now, Yulu has not filed its audited financials, and thus, some of Gupta’s claims from the past on EBITDA profitability and revenue cannot be verified. The company did not share any concrete details on the EBITDA margins or revenue for FY25. 

In November last year, Yulu said in a press release that it wants to raise $100 Mn to scale up to 1 Lakh bikes by November 2025. It also said that it had reached $30 Mn ARR on the basis of its revenue in September 2024. 

However, it would not be right to assume that this is the actual income earned by Yulu in FY25. ARR only represents a potential trajectory of revenue based on the revenue earned in a month.

Given the lack of disclosures, we have to rely on an analysis of macro factors to understand how Yulu will fare in the longer run. First, its focus on quick services. 

Today, this category is small in terms of revenue contribution, while quick commerce accounts for 55% and food delivery for 40% of all revenue earned by Yulu.

Quick commerce is growing the fastest, accounting for more than 60% of all online grocery orders, a recent report by Bain suggested. Quick commerce GMV has doubled from 2022 to touch $7 Bn in 2024. More than 200K delivery partners in 2024 earned through these platforms, a number which is projected to double in 2025. 

Food delivery has also witnessed significant growth in the past, reaching around $80 Bn in size in 2024 from about $52 Bn in 2019. The addition of Rapido as a new competitor is great news for Yulu. 

Besides Yulu, the likes of Zypp, Baaz and others are making hay in this boom, which turns out to be cheaper for delivery workers as well. 

Breaking Down Yulu’s Model

Now let’s take a look at the company’s financial performance till FY24 and study it through its operational model.  Most pertinently in this context, Yulu doesn’t manufacture these bikes. The biggest capex spending is for procuring these vehicles from Bajaj Auto, a strategic investor in the company and the OEM behind Yulu bikes. 

Exactly three years back, Gupta said Yulu had 10,000 vehicles on the road. Today, this number stands at 45,000. In November 2024, Yulu projected that nearly 1 lakh vehicles would be plying on the Indian roads in the next 12 months. The company is currently 55,000 vehicles short of its target, and it has nearly three months to cover this gap.

In FY22, Yulu spent INR 12.7 Cr on buying vehicles from Bajaj, which jumped to INR 31.9 Cr in the next fiscal and then INR 99.2 Cr in FY24. In comparison, it clocked around INR 29 Cr in operating revenue in FY22, INR 41.7 Cr in FY23, and INR 119.8 Cr in FY24. The net loss in FY24 was INR 142.8 Cr.

This expense head is expected to have increased further, particularly if the company is adding more high-speed scooters to its existing portfolio, and even if the franchise model has relieved some of the cost pressure. 

Though the number of Yulu Express out on the roads is still less, as these are operational in a few pockets of Bengaluru only, they are expected to cost more than low-speed EVs. 

Gupta did not delve into further details on the numbers, but claims that in FY26, Yulu has consistently been EBITDA profitable each month and will end the year on the same trajectory.

Given its procurement-reliant model, Yulu’s top-line growth was directly determined by its procurement chain and its sales muscle. It did not seem to have any problem growing this, but the bottomline is another matter. Gupta cites Yulu’s heavy investments towards R&D and innovation as one of the main reasons behind it. 

He didn’t reveal exactly how much the company spends every year on R&D. While Bajaj Auto is the manufacturer, Yulu has invested to build technology and design IPs for the components used in the scooters. 

A Good Time For EV Deliveries 

Gupta expects Yulu to have a net profit sometime in FY27. But the market has some bigger players today, which have adopted different strategies for growth, even within the gig worker space. 

The likes of Baaz, Zypp, and Bounce have followed Yulu’s path in some ways, though there are key operational differences in all of them. The opportunity in catering to gig workers was too hard to ignore during the pandemic. 

Bounce has started partnering with various delivery platforms, but its revenue of INR 26 Cr in FY24 pales in comparison to Yulu’s INR 120 Cr.

Baaz, on the other hand, is also scaling its business and has started eating up Yulu’s market share in Delhi NCR. However, its business is still quite small compared to Yulu’s.

In terms of revenue, Zypp has a higher benchmark, with INR 302 Cr in FY24 and INR 455 Cr in FY25. 

Unlike Yulu, which targets the workers themselves, Zypp directly works with companies such as Swiggy, Zomato, and Zepto to provide their EVs to the gig workers on these platforms.

Gupta says the key difference is that gig workers pay the startup directly for the mobility subscription. “Unlike Zypp, we have to take ownership of the entire service and product stack we provide to the delivery executives. From the technology stack to innovation on the vehicles, battery pack, and charging, we are solving the mobility problem in a very different way.”

While competition is rising, Gupta remains confident that Yulu’s diversification strategies will complement this differentiated approach. 

Yulu’s Choice: Pace Or Stability? 

Yulu is in the process of raising $100 Mn in a Series C funding round. Besides, their IPO is also on the anvil, but not before 2027-end. 

As a result, Gupta and other cofounders – Naveen Dachuri and Rajendra Kumar Mishra – are increasing their stake in the company, and the company is looking for more debt in the upcoming funding round, the CEO confirmed, without disclosing the exact split of debt versus equity. 

“I call this non-dilutive capital. Why dilute further stake when a few good institutions are willing to give debt at attractive rates?”

It’s not clear whether the four founders are buying stake back from investors or whether this is a fresh raise that will dilute the stake of other shareholders in the company.

Back in 2017, the four cofounders wanted to solve air pollution and traffic congestion, which soon expanded after the pandemic. Gupta says Yulu’s mission today also aligns with livelihood creation and he is quite satisfied that these problems have been addressed to a large extent with 3.5 Lakh delivery partners and gig workers using its bikes in the past five years. 

But even Gupta agrees that Yulu is running slower than initially expected. It should have been a 5X-10X larger company today than it is, the CEO claims. 

“We are running at least half the speed, but this is a complex business. If we do not solve technology issues early on, it will become harder to solve at higher production levels. And that took time, but over the next five years at least, we’ll try to catch up.” 

Now, as the company prepares for its next phase of growth, will Yulu push the growth accelerator or continue to embrace the slow-but-steady approach?

[Edited By Nikhil Subramaniam]