Wheelstreet is on the verge of reaching break-even

Bengaluru-based Wheelstreet, which offers bikes on rent, has launched the service in 30 cities in 3 years

“Renting a bike (motorcycle) from Wheelstreet is now my daily routine. It has replaced cab services on my phone and I book a bike every morning. I never thought renting a bike would be so easy and affordable,” says a user.
 
The user is speaking of his experience in renting a motorcycle from Bengaluru-based Wheelstreet, a marketplace for vendors and people looking to rent these. Launched in 2014, the two-wheeler rental aggregator works with independent vendors, enabling them to offer personalised services. That includes differential pricing structures for the same vehicle, multiple pick-up locations, large variety and fleet of the latest motorcycles, plus real-time availability tracking on the platform. 

 
Conceived by two motorcycle enthusiasts, Moksha Srivastava and Pranay Shrivastava, Wheelstreet aims to make the renting of these a hassle-free experience. It recently raised $120,000 (Rs 78 lakh) from Y Combinator, an American seed fund accelerator.
 

 “Taking a bike on rent was there for 40-45 years but none were online. We saw that taking a bike on rent is a very big market, still untapped, unorganised and  offline. We did research and found a similar potential which Delhi has is there in 40 other cities,” says Moksha Srivastava, chief marketing officer.
 
Headquartered in Bengaluru and operational in around 30 cities, Wheelstreet has about 300 vendors on board and plans to add 600 more in the next couple of months. It accepts bookings on both app and web, collecting a 20 per cent commission on each booking from vendors as its revenue. It closed 2016-17 with $400,000 (Rs 2.6 crore) in gross merchandise value. “Wheelstreet is currently operationally profitable, with healthy unit economics. We expect to reach break-even in the next four months,” said Moksha.

 
The online aggregator now gets about 10,000 bookings a month and served about 70,000 riders  between January to September this year. The  company tracks two sections in its business — daily commutes and weekend trips. In the former, the average booking size goes up to Rs 6,200 a month. In the weekend trips section (WS Explore) the monthly average booking is Rs 40,000-50,000 as the booking duration is 14-15 days. “The segments are different and both do really well for us. We get hourly, daily, weekly and monthly bookings in the commute section. Both are high revenue generators,” says Moksha.

 
Wheelstreet has got four rounds of funding, the latest being from Y Combinator. Backed by Broadbean Capital Services, it has got $500,000 in funding till date; it plans to close a Series-A round of $3-5 million (Rs 2-3 crore) in the next two months. All the money raised would go into developing of  technology and  new launches. The company is launching a first-time concept of Point A to B commute with dockless motorbike rentals.
 
“The customer will now be able to pick up a bike literally 10 steps from where they are and then drop it at a location of their convenience, without any external or third-party involvement. They will be able to collect the bike through the app itself, without any human intervention,” says Pranay Shrivastava, chief executive officer.

 
The plan is to launch at Bali in Indonesia, in Nepal and other cities in Southeast Asia.
 
“India is a hotbed of creativity and talent, and we’ve seen a growing number of promising start-ups from the region. Wheelstreet is one such example and we believe they can organise the fragmented bike rental space in Asia. The strong Wheelstreet team has succeeded in building a robust operation within a short span of time,” says Jared Friedman, partner at Y Combinator.