[Funding alert] After investing in Vogo, Sachin Bansal lends bike-rental platform Bounce $4M
After investing in the Bengaluru-based bike rental platform Vogo, Sachin Bansal’s new fund has invested close to $4 million in Bounce via debt capital.
Bounce (previously known as Metro bikes), the Bengaluru-based last-mile mobility platform, has raised debt capital of approximately $4 million from Flipkart Co-founder Sachin Bansal’s new fund, BAC Acquisitions.
A highly placed source at Bounce confirmed the debt funding to YourStory, and said it would primarily be used for expansion in Bengaluru.
Sachin Bansal had earlier invested in the Ola-backed bike-rental platform Vogo. (In January, Bounce had raised Rs 50 crore led by led by Sequoia India, Chiratae Ventures, Accel India, and ON Mauritius.)
The funding was part of a Series B round announced in August 2018. Bounce – then known as Metro Bikes - had earlier raised $12.2 million in a Series A round, led by Sequoia India and Accel Partners, along with Raghunandan G, Co-founder of TaxiForSure, and a consortium of other investors. Soon after Metro Bikes rebranded itself as 'Bounce'.
Also read: Shuttl raises Rs 49.99 cr led by Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed, SCI Investments, and Times Internet
The intention is to expand Bounce’s network across Bengaluru and develop a pan-India presence by 2020. The team also aims to use the funding to invest in a stronger delivery model through innovations in technology, the source told YourStory.
Founded by Vivekananda, Varun Agni and Anil G, Bounce operates in over 10 cities. Given the rapid growth in the bike-taxi and bike-rental segment in India, it currently competes with the likes of Vogo, Rapido, RentOnGo, ZipHop, and ONNBikes.
A study by AlphaBeta Analytics suggests that globally, Uber users save 38 percent time with uberMOTO and 9-18 percent of time with uberX, compared to modes of transportation available earlier.
Mobility seems to be a sector in focus this year. Apart from Ola, Bounce and Vogo, Gurugram-based bus aggregator Shuttl announced it had raised Rs 49.99 crore as a part of its Series B funding.