Bangalore-based bike rental startup Bounce has raised $105 million in Series D funding round led by Accel Partners and Facebook Co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital Group.
Existing investors Accel Partners India, Falcon Edge, Chiratae Ventures, Omidyar Network India, Maverick Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, and Qualcomm Ventures also participated in this round of funding.
The new funding round will soar Bounce valuation upto $520 million and takes the total capital raised to $194 million.
The current funding will to focus on deeper Electric Vehicle (EV) integration and a platform play, and will push towards profitability.
Vivekananda H.R, CEO and Co-founder of Bounce, said, “Our growth to 1,20,000 rides a day, in a little over a year and largely in one city, underlines that the future belongs to shared mobility. Shared mobility not only reduces the traffic but also frees up parking spaces, which in Indian cities is anywhere between 12-15 percent of the total usable real estate. However, the main vision of Bounce is to democratise mobility and thus make a significant socio-economic impact. This fresh funding will help us work towards this vision. It will also enable us to build a mobility platform that will help bringing in different forms of mobility solutions hyper-suited to the needs of cities and towns we plan to expand into, over the next few months.”
Bounce, formerly known as Metro Bikes, allows customers to rent a scooter and pay as low as 1 Indian rupee (0.15 cents) for each kilometer of the ride. The startup, which clocks 1.2 million rides each day, allows users to leave the vehicle in any nearby docking station or partnered mom-and-pop store after the ride.