Ola-backed bike and scooter sharing startup Vogo raises $19 million

The latest fundraising is critical for Vogo to grow as it tries to find space for itself across India's cities. Its rival Bounce has already crossed $520 million in valuation.

Vogo, a bike- and scooter-sharing start-up, has raised $19 million (around Rs 136 crore) in a funding round led by LGT Lightstone, an investment fund managed by the Princely House of Liechtenstein. Other existing investors such as Matrix Partners and Kalaari Capital have also participated in the round, according to the regulatory documents filed by Vogo, which were sourced from business signals platform Paper.vc.

 

“Vogo, raised $19 million last week from a new investor and two existing investors at a valuation of $76.3 million,” said Nikhil Kanekal, Analyst, Paper.vc. LGT Lightstone led the investment round with $15.6 million.

 

Vogo had previously raised money from ride-hailing firm Ola (Ani Technologies) and Stellaris Venture Partners. In December 2018, Vogo formed a strategic partnership with Ola, under which the ride-hailing giant will boost Vogo’s supply by investing in 1,00,000 scooters on the Vogo platform, worth $100 million. The cab-hailing firm had said Vogo’s offerings will be available for Ola’s customer base of over 150 million, directly from the Ola app.

 

Vogo’s main rival Bounce now has touched a valuation of $520 million, with the backing of Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital and B Capital. Bounce, which recently raised $105 million, is planning expansion in India and also get into markets abroad.

 

“The latest fundraising is critical for Vogo to grow as it tries to find space for itself across India’s cities, the world’s fastest-growing market for scooter rentals,” said Kanekal of Paper.vc.

 

Vogo, which is 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 Vogo after realising that after buses, sharing scooters was a big opportunity as these vehicles are the major mode of commutation for people, followed by autorickshaws, personal cars and cabs in the country. But what differentiates the company is that it uses the Internet of Things, a technology where devices communicate with each other intelligently. This is done to eliminate human intervention of sharing the scooters with customers and also monitor parameters, such as location, fuel level and health of the vehicles.

 

In India, only 18 per cent of the population has access to owned vehicles and 82 per cent depend on shared and public transport for their daily commute. However, due to poor urban planning and lack of infrastructure, transport is broken in most parts of the country.