After Ola investment, Sachin Bansal backs scooter sharing start-up Vogo

Vogo is also betting big on India's growing traffic congestion

Sachin Bansal, the co-founder of e-commerce major Flipkart, is backing scooter-sharing start-up Vogo. He has invested an undisclosed amount in the Bengaluru-based company, which is trying to solve micro-mobility issue, sources familiar with the development said.

“It is a debt investment. Sachin’s (Bansal) treasury department is managing some of his money and investing in a bunch of start-ups,” said a person familiar with the matter. Bansal could not be reached for comments. 

Walmart’s $16-billion investment in Flipkart last May for an initial stake of 77 per cent not only provided blockbuster exits to the investors but also made the founders — Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal — into billionaires and they both are deploying their wealth in new ventures.

Besides Vogo, Bansal has also made investments in many firms, including ride-hailing firm Ola, electric vehicle maker Ather Energy and SigTuple, which uses artificial intelligence to aid medical diagnosis.

According to research firm CB Insights, start-ups addressing short-distance transport have taken the mobility space by storm recently, notably with the rise of bike and scooter rental firms. It said bikes and scooters could help commuters access public transport hubs several miles away. 

Vogo, which has a fleet of over 4,000 scooters mainly in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, is also betting big on India’s growing traffic congestion.

Vogo, the short form for ‘vehicle on the go’, was co-founded in 2016 by Anand Ayyadurai, an alumnus of Vishwakarma Institute of Technology in Pune and IIM-Ahmedabad, along with Padmanabhan Balakrishnan and Sanchit Mittal. 

The trio founded the firm after realising that after buses, sharing scooters was a big opportunity as these vehicles are the major mode of commutation for people after autorickshaws, personal cars and cabs. But what makes a difference is that the company uses the Internet of Things, a technology where devices communicate with each other intelligently, to eliminate human intervention of sharing the scooters with customers. The technology also helps them monitor parameters such as location, fuel level and health of the vehicles among others.

Earlier this week, Vogo said it had launched first-of-a-kind 1-click booking technology for its scooter-sharing service. The firm unveiled the Bluetooth-powered technology for its petrol and electric vehicles. Now, Vogo customers can directly unlock and start the ignition of scooters via the click of a button on the Vogo app, making the booking experience seamless. 

The firm also said this innovation was ahead of all OTP (one-time password)-based solutions which are currently available in the market. Last December, the two-year-old start-up had formed a strategic partnership with Ola, where the ride-hailing giant would boost Vogo’s supply by committing an investment of $100 million towards purchase of 100,000 scooters on the Vogo platform. Now, its offerings will be available for Ola’s customer base of over 150 million, directly from the Ola app. 

The company, which competes with Bengaluru-based scooter sharing firm Bounce, has plans to expand to other major cities and tier-I and tier-II locations in the country.