Bike rental startup Metro Bikes raises $12.2 million

Bengaluru-based Metro Bikes, a motorbike and scooter rental startup on Thursday said that it has raised series A funding of $12.2 million led by Sequoia India and Accel Partners. The startup, which rebranded itself to Bounce from Metro Bikes said that Raghunandan G, co-founder of TaxiForSure (now a part of Ola) and a consortium of other investors also participated in the latest round of funding.

The money will be utilised to further scale the company’s network across Bengaluru, invest in technology and ramp up its presence across major cities in India by 2020. Founded by Vivekananda HR, Varun Agni and Anil G, the startup offers the scooter/motorbike sharing service allowing users to pick up and drop off at any location. “There is tremendous potential for innovation in the shared mobility segment given the major gap in last mile connectivity in intra-city travel. We are looking at a market opportunity of $ 4.5 billion,” said Vivekananda HR, co-founder, Bounce.

“We’ve also gone beyond scooters, offering other forms of transport including bicycles, electric pedelecs and kick scooters across the city. And Bounce seemed like an appropriate name for our new avatar,” Vivekananda added.

The startup points out that the average cost per km is as low as Rs 6 for a user. With most intra-city commute being sub 5 km, the service is, therefore, already seeing massive adoption, it added. So far, the company has seen over 2 lakh downloads on its android and iOS platforms.

‘’There has been a lot of attention on four-wheel shared mobility across the world”, said Shailesh Lakhani, managing director, Sequoia Capital India Advisors. “While it makes sense in other markets, a service like Bounce has immense potential in India, where limitations of space and cost has always made two-wheelers more popular. Bounce has the potential to be a category creator - being the first to offer an extremely cost-effective, personalised, motorised transport that fills a critical need gap in the Indian market,’’ he added.

Lakhani, of Sequoia Capital along with Anand Daniel, partner at Accel will join the board.

Anand Daniel of Accel Partners points out that last mile connectivity for public transportation remains unsolved across India, and we believe that there exists a large market opportunity. “Bounce’s product offering is particularly interesting as it uniquely fits multiple investment themes that we are excited about: tech-enabled solutions for mass India and shared-economy solutions across various categories (like lodging, transportation, and furniture).” Earlier investors of Bounce include Captain Prashant Priya, a serial entrepreneur and LG Chandrasekar, co-founder, Sutures India.