Bounce turns EBIT positive in September, to double down on B2B offerings: CEO

EV maker Bounce Infinity has been no stranger to pivots. From starting out in 2014 as a premium bike rental company which offered two-wheelers across a range of brands from Harley Davidson to Ducati to later becoming a scooter rental service in 2016, the team has worn multiple caps. 

In 2018, the company adopted a dockless bike-sharing model which allowed users to drop their vehicles after use within the city limits. However, it was severely hit by the pandemic, which halted urban mobility. 

Finally in 2021, Bounce entered the EV ecosystem and has since managed to significantly narrow its net losses consecutively until FY23. The company is yet to file its FY24 results, but according to Vivekananda Hallekere, CEO and co-founder of Bounce, it turned EBIT positive in September for the first time and is on track to clock in Rs 100 crore in revenue in FY25. 

In a conversation with YourStory, Hallekere details Bounce’s overseas ambitions and how it intends to double down on its business-to-business (B2B) offerings amidst a boom in the e-commerce and quick commerce space. 

YS: India’s electric mobility space is seeing intense competition. How is Bounce Infinity hoping to stay ahead of the curve in this ecosystem?

Vivekananda: Our learnings from managing a fleet of 30,000 scooters in our ride-sharing business, covering over 200 million kilometres, gave us an in-depth understanding of what is required in electric two-wheelers. So we've built our scooters like a platform where we can keep moving up in terms of the battery tech and motor tech. We don't have to redo the whole vehicle. We made certain design choices very early in our journey which makes us stay very agile and flexible.

We are probably the only Indian OEM today which has been able to integrate with battery swapping operators. So today for any delivery use case where gig workers don't have space to park their vehicle and charge their scooter, they can use our scooters. That is one thing we have done. 

Second is the battery swapping itself, where we have integrated with multiple battery swapping operators. So you can just come, start riding, you don't have to worry about range, you don't have to worry about where to charge, and you pay, it's like a variable cost, and you don't have to worry about battery life, warranty, etc. So these things have helped us focus on certain use cases, without having to burn a lot of money.

YS: How are you hoping to expand your business-to-consumer (B2C) services, going forward?

Vivekananda: There is intense competition in the B2C segment today. Everyone is losing at a bomb cost level, which means that you should have had a lot of money in the bank, as in you should have raised a lot of funds, or you can't do this. So we have taken a different approach. 

For the first two years, we focused on B2C, and we sold across India to dealers, etc. But once this marketing and burn intensified, we started focusing on use cases where people need high uptime, high reliability, and flexibility in terms of solution. So we have gone after those use cases. One of such use cases is the B2B use case that we are talking about. In the last two quarters, we worked closely with logistics companies and quick commerce companies. 

We recognised challenges faced by gig workers, like lack of credit and charging infrastructure and the company developed a plug-and-play EV leasing solution for logistics firms.

By offering long-term leases that include vehicle maintenance, insurance, and energy costs at 30% lower than alternatives, they remove vehicle ownership hurdles. This enables logistics firms to scale rapidly by hiring workers without vehicles and promotes loyalty by offering lease-to-own options for gig workers.

We've solved the scooter part of the equation, where they sign up long-term leases. Now the logistics company can go find people who don't have a scooter to work with them. So in the last quarter, we have added close to 3,000 scooters for them.

We have offered a seamless long-term lease solution, managing everything from vehicle recovery to ownership transfer. Gig workers can even own the vehicle in 26-48 months, which fosters loyalty and ease for delivery companies.

YS: All models of Bounce Infinity have a detachable battery to accommodate battery swapping. How do you think the battery swapping ecosystem in India is growing today?

Vivekananda: We have two large operators, BatterySmart and Sun. BatterySmart is built on e-rickshaw versus model. So, they're primarily strong in markets where e-rickshaw is already out there running. But the difference between a battery swapping for e-rickshaw versus two-wheeler delivery is the uptime and reliability and other things. An e-rickshaw might be okay to have some downtime. An e-rickshaw is a low-speed vehicle while two-wheelers are high- speed vehicles. 

Previously, we operated our swapping infrastructure during our ride-sharing days, but we now focus on private networks, offering solutions for clients like bike taxi companies. Today, the market is aware of what is battery swapping, what is the pricing of battery swapping that works for a gig worker. With growing awareness among gig workers and increasing demand, battery swapping is gaining traction.

Over the next 12-18 months, major players like Jio and Shell are expected to enter the space, which will boost investment in this capital-intensive sector, currently dominated by just two well-funded operators.

YS: What is the path forward for Bounce?

Vivekananda:: So we think the delivery ecosystem is going to be a good market. So we will come up with more products which make sense for different use cases. It can be a low speed one, it can be a mid speed one with battery or with battery swapping. We will also come up with some fixed batteries also for certain use cases. We are not married to one school of thought. I think each use case needs a particular solution. So we will come up with those solutions. 

Then another key piece that we will try and do is how to make electric scooters a shareable asset in a way by helping companies own vehicles with ease and through transparent lending. 

YS: What are your plans for the B2C segment?

Vivekananda: So we will let it organically grow for now. Because we have about 20,000 users who have bought our models and are very happy. Whatever we innovate, we will offer B2C as well. But we won't go after discounting or aggressive pricing. We will try to be very logical about the

price point to the end user. 

For example we have liquid cooled fast charge batteries for B2C use cases, which are portable and fast charging. We are now looking at LFP fast charging solutions and smaller batteries for B2C use cases where the utilisation is less. 

We were the first to say that we don't need a 4 kWh battery for B2C use

case. A 1.9 kWh battery with 60-70 kWh range is good enough. The whole industry actually followed that. So we will go further down in the energy that a user needs which will enable them to bring down the cost of a vehicle that way. 

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YS: Could you elaborate on your recent partnership with SUN Mobility to deploy 30,000 e-scooters?

Vivekananda: We partner with SUN to offer scooters integrated with their battery swapping solution. Logistics companies pay us for the vehicles and SUN for energy. This model eliminates the need for SUN to buy vehicles directly.

So far, we've deployed over 4,000 scooters on SUN’s network. I think we are now looking at it to be not too dependent on SUN to pick up these vehicles and are scaling independently, with a current deployment run rate of 1,500-2,000 scooters per month.

YS: How flexible is Bounce when it comes switching between battery swapping platforms depending on a customer’s preference?

Vivekananda: Today when we work with SUN Mobility, the scooters that are deployed under this partnership’s battery swapping infrastructure can work only with SUN Mobility’s batteries unless we change the connectors. But our scooters are adaptable and if requested, we can seamlessly transition the vehicle for other battery swapping operators like Battery Smart. 

It's like in a way the portability of telecom operators. You can't for every call choose between Airtel versus Vodafone, but you make a conscious choice that I want to move from Airtel to Vodafone. So, we have built that flexibility on the scooter because of which we are able to remove the risk of being married to a battery swapping operator both from a buyer point of view and a company. So, we do deep integrations and we work with SUN. 

YS: Could you help me understand when do you see the company becoming profitable?

Vivekananda: In September, we became EBIT positive, covering all costs, including interest, which is a milestone for an OEM. We have strong exports and a lean operation that focuses on the product. We aim to remain EBITDA positive and achieve net profitability within two quarters while doubling our turnover.

YS: How do you think the company’s top-line numbers will look like in FY25?

Vivekananda: This March, if we go at the current run rate, we should be at Rs 100 crores plus of annual revenue. If we get to double down, I think there is a high chance that we can get to an annualised revenue rate of Rs 150 to Rs 200 crore.

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YS: What are Bounce’s plans in terms of overseas expansion?

Vivekananda: We were very bullish on Europe, but Europe has gone through its own ups and downs. All the quick commerce companies have not sustained there. But two years ago, we were thinking of Europe to be one of our major markets. Our scooters are European Union certified scooters. Because of this certification, we are able to sell it in a bunch of markets such as the Philippines, and Africa. We have been selling our vehicles in South Africa for almost a year now. 

We sell our scooters at about $2,000-$2,300, which is attractive for both us and the buyer. Bounce competes with China's NIU in this market. However, we perform better and are more economical and highly rugged because it (the scooter) was built for Indian roads. 

In the Middle East, we have a high speed variant, which is a 90 kmph top speed variant, which we are making now. Now we are selling the current variants, but the Middle East has this need for high speed. Because of the highways and minimum speed requirement. So, we have a 90 kmph data product, which we are releasing for the Middle East market.

About 5-10% of our total revenue from operations are coming from exports, but at a very high margin as of now. So, we think we have still not invested on the marketing and distribution part of it for exports. But this year, we are going to double down on it. We are looking at more countries in the Middle East including Dubai and Abu Dhabi. 

YS: Do you see Bounce being in the market to raise more funds any time soon?

Vivekananda: I think we will figure out the timing. Since we are now an EBIT-positive company, we are looking at a range of options including IPO markets and private credit and figuring out where we should deploy the funds. While we are not actively raising capital right now, we remain open to opportunities with the right investors.