Exclusive: Mobility startup Bounce to raise $200 mn from Accel, B Capital, others

Wickedride Adventure Services, the Bengaluru based startup that owns and operates dockless scooter rentals platform Bounce, is close to finalising a $200 million (Rs 1417. 28 crore at current exchange rates) funding round. The company’s existing investors are expected to bring in 50-70% of the round, multiple people privy to the development told TechCircle.

Among existing investors, Accel US and B Capital Group, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s investment firm, are slated to account for a large chunk of the round, one of the people cited above said, requesting anonymity. A US-based venture capital is likely to join the round as a new investor. 

Bounce has already closed $120 million of the targeted round, another of the people cited above said. 

Apart from Accel and B Capital, Bounce’s other existing investors include New York based hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital, Chiratae Ventures, Maverick Ventures, Omidyar Network India, Sequoia Capital India, Qualcomm Ventures and Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal.

Email queries sent to Vivekanand Hallekere, co-founder and CEO of Bounce, seeking more information in this regard, did not elicit responses at the time of publishing this report.

The round will be used primarily to expand and scale up Bounce’s operations across the country and overseas. Another of the people cited above said that the startup is launching operations in Australia within the next two weeks. A formal announcement on the launch is expected soon.

The latest development comes even as Bounce has been busy expanding operations and closing funding rounds. 

Last month, Techcircle had reported that the company’s EV subsidiary, Zuink Smart Mobility Solutions Pvt Ltd, was in talks to raise up to $50 million (Rs 345 crore then).

In June, it raised around $72 million (Rs 504 crore then) in its Series C round of funding led by B Capital and Falcon Edge.

Bounce

The venture was founded in 2014 by Hallekere, Varun Agni and Anil G.

The company initially offered motorbikes and scooters on a rental basis primarily to urban commuters. It tweaked its business model to a dockless scooter-sharing service but has continued to run its rental business. 

Besides Bounce, the company also operates WickedRide, a premium motorbike rental platform that includes brands such as Harley Davidson, Benelli, Royal Enfield, Kawasaki, Triumph, Ducati, KTM and Americana. With the acquisition of bicycle-sharing unicorn Ofo’s India assets, Bounce also offers dockless bicycle sharing.

Last month, Bounce announced that it had hit the milestone of five million rides.

The platform, which  also clocked 60,000 rides per day in Bengaluru, has around 7,000 dockless scooters which, on average, cover a distance of up to 8 kilometres per ride.  

One of the persons mentioned above said that the company has already crossed 70,000 rides per day. To put that number in perspective, US-based e-scooter rental platform Bird, which is currently valued at $2.5 billion according to a TechCrunch report, has completed more than 10 million rides and clocks a little over 100,000 rides per day, by various estimates. Interestingly, Bounce and Bird share a common investor in Sequoia Capital.