Bike-sharing startup Bounce raises Rs 50 Cr in round led by Sequoia India, Chiratae Ventures, others

Bounce also filed its financial report, which reflected a rise in revenues as well as an increase in losses for FY17–18.

Bengaluru-based dockless bike-sharing startup Bounce has raised a funding of almost Rs 50 crore in a round led by Sequoia India, Chiratae Ventures, Accel India, and ON Mauritius, media reports confirmed on Monday.

This appears to be the Series B round for the company, which had raised $12.2 million Series A funding led by Sequoia India and Accel Partners, along with Raghunandan G, Founder of TaxiForSure, and a consortium of other investors back in August 2018. It was also around the same time that the bike- and scooter-rental platform had rebranded itself as 'Bounce' from the erstwhile Metro Bikes.

“We are looking at a market opportunity of $ 4.5 billion. And with this investment, we can bring these innovations and solutions to people on a much larger scale,” Vivekananda HR, Co-founder of Bounce had said in a press statement at the time. “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. A service available across vehicles, and all over the city.”

However, talks of fresh capital infusion have been doing the rounds since last month, with reports even claiming that Bounce is close to raising over $10 million from a cohort of new and existing investors. Apart from the $10 million fundraise, it was also reported that Wickedride Adventure Services, which operates the scooter-sharing platform, was in talks to close a $50 million fundraise round by the end of January.

While the dockless bike-sharing portal was successful in raising fresh capital, its losses for the financial year ending March 31, 2018, has almost doubled. According to its RoC filing for FY17–18, the revenues have grown from Rs 4.3 crore to Rs 5.4 crore over the last year. Along with the rise in revenue, the company’s losses also soared, from Rs 3.2 crore to Rs 7 crore.

Founded by Vivekananda, Varun Agni and Anil G, Bounce operates in over 10 cities and given the fast growth in the bike-taxi segment, it currently competes with the likes of Vogo, Rapido, RentOnGo, ZipHop, ONN Bikes and others.