Yulu is a dockless, lithium-powered scooter focusing on the sub-5 km first- and last-mile connectivity, the same market which Ola backed Vogo and Sequoia, Accel backed Bounce are targeting.
Yulu offers bicycles and electric scooters with a maximum speed of 25 km per hour, which requires no licence or helmet for usage.
Uber has tied up with electric cycle sharing app Yulu to offer bicycle rentals to its customers. In its current form, the Uber app redirects a customer to register on Yulu, instead of directly offering to book the service from the app.
It remains unclear if Uber India invested or acquired Yulu. However, globally the company has been clear about its ambitions of being a multi modal transportation app. Infact, last year Uber acquired New York City-based e-bike startup Jump for an estimated $100 million after a two months pilot. It also invested in Bay Area-based electric scooter rental company Lime as part of a $335 million round and said it was going to promote Lime in its mobile app.
Yulu is a dockless, lithium-powered scooter focusing on the sub-5 km first- and last-mile connectivity, the same market which Ola backed Vogo and Sequoia, Accel backed Bounce are targeting.
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Founded by former inMobi top executive Amit Gupta and backed by investors including Blume Ventures, Binny Bansal, Naveen Tewari and Girish Mathrubootham, Yulu offers bicycles and electric scooters with a maximum speed of 25 km per hour, which requires no licence or helmet for usage. Yulu sources the Miracle scooters, unassembled, from China, but the battery is from India and local partners help assemble these scooters.
Addressing the first and last mile mobility in India has the potential to be even a bigger market than ride hailing, making it of interest to both Ola and Uber. However, the business model comes with its own set of challenges including building infrastructure for electric mobility, density as well as customer awareness of the use case itself.
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Ola is expected to integrate Vogo on its app next quarter.
All companies in this space have aggressively been scouting for debt and striking partnerships with OEMs as they look to finance these scooters because unlike ride hailing where cabs were owned by drivers, this market itself is emerging and assets are on the books of the company.
In October, Yulu last raised a Rs 30 crore debt round from Jo Hirao, Akatsuki, 3one4 Capital, Blume Ventures, AL Trust, Neeraj Sagar and Shangrila Infotech. Last month, Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal’s BACQ invested $3 million in debt to Vogo and Bounce.
