As India’s fast commerce platforms race to deliver everything from groceries to smartphones in minutes, electric mobility startup yulu has taken advantage of the boom, raising $93 million in new financing.
The Bengaluru-based startup offers electric two-wheelers with weekly subscription plans, so delivery riders can directly access the platform, without having to purchase their own vehicle. With around 50,000 electric vehicles in its fleet, Yulu reports that it drives around 1.6 million miles each week and makes more than 750,000 deliveries a day. The new funding will allow Yulu to grow that fleet to 200,000 bikes over the next two years and launch faster electric two-wheelers aimed at different logistics use cases.
The Series C round comprised $63 million in equity led by GEF Capital Partners and $30 million in debt financing. About $5.5 million of the equity component was used to buy shares from early investors whose funds were reaching the end of their useful life, co-founder and CEO Amit Gupta said in an interview.
The deal valued Yulu at around $170 million after money, people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Gupta declined to comment when asked about the valuation and did not dispute the figure.
Existing investors Bajaj Auto and Magna International did not participate in the round after giving up their pre-emptive rights, allowing GEF to acquire their target stake, Gupta said. He added that the startup expects this to be its last equity fundraising before an eventual public listing, and that future fleet expansion will be financed primarily through debt and lease financing.
The business is moving towards being profitable before interest and tax next year, after achieving positive EBITDA last financial year, Gupta told TechCrunch. The startup also saw its revenue grow sevenfold between fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2026, he said, without sharing details.
The COVID change
Founded as a bike sharing startup For urban commuters in 2017, Yulu found its biggest opportunity during the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand for food and grocery deliveries accelerated.
Today, Gupta told TechCrunch that around 95% of Yulu’s revenue comes from renting e-bikes to workers on weekly subscriptions, while the rest is generated by its rental service at stations in Bengaluru. The startup also abandoned an earlier plan to sell bikes directly to consumers.
To fuel its next phase of growth, Yulu is introducing a full-size, higher-speed electric scooter, called the Yulu Express. It is designed for long-distance e-commerce deliveries, bike taxis and express parcel services, areas that its slower fleet could not cover before.
About a third of the planned fleet of 200,000 vehicles will be made up of this new model, Gupta said.
While Yulu’s current low-speed fleet is built by Bajaj AutoThe new high-speed scooter comes from another Indian manufacturer; Gupta declined to name him.
Around 500 of the new bikes are already running in Bengaluru and are being tested in three more cities, Gupta told TechCrunch.
Currently, Yulu operates in 12 cities in India, running its own operations in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR and Hyderabad, while partnering with franchisees in eight other markets. The startup, Gupta said, aims to reach about 20 cities over the next year, with Chennai and Pune among the key expansion targets.
Gupta said Yulu partners with almost all major quick-commerce, food delivery and e-commerce platforms, including Amazon-owned Flipkart and Walmart, although its customers are the workers who rent the bikes, not the platforms themselves. He compared Yulu’s role to “the AWS of mobility,” providing the infrastructure that allows delivery people to operate without the platforms taking a cut.
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