Ali Hasan
Vogo to get you 2 wheelers without any Human Intervention
Introduction – Vogo is a dock less scooter Rental Company that lets customers rent scooters for short one-way trips. The company’s VOGO box is attached to each scooter and lets customers access the key without any human intervention and start riding.
Vogo is the fastest commute option available today in India at a fraction of the cost of other alternatives. Vogo is currently available at limited pick-up and drop-off points across Bangalore and Hyderabad. Basically, Vogo offers transportation solutions in the form of self-driven rental scooters and cars. The startup is headquartered in Bengaluru, India and was started in 2016.
Early Days – Vogo was started as an idea to help millions of Indians to travel freely, solo or with someone without any restrictions. The co-founders envisioned a better way to move around big bustling cities without any hassle. They thought for a while and they came up with the idea of Vogo.
The startup lets you hire a gearless scooter whenever you want so that you don’t have to wait for a cab and you’re also able to beat the traffic without any major problem. Now imagine yourself that you need to go somewhere. You may be alone or maybe with a friend.
You really don’t want to sit around, wait for a cab to arrive or sit behind someone else driving you. You want to move on your own. And then you think…What if I had a bike now? Someone hands you one, lets you take it where you want to go. Now you don’t really mind paying a little for that thoughtful gesture.
In fact, you’re thankful for the gesture. What a solid friend to have someone who just gets you. This is exactly what Vogo does; they’re the friend who helps you during crisis. Vogo was started by 3 youngsters who were restless to see a better India.
They wanted freedom from congested roads, insane travel times and spending half a day to move 5 km. They knew that cabs have their own advantages, but when you want time and freedom then you need some innovation.
So they used their lessons from their time at companies like Flipkart, Housing, Zoomcar, etc, and put their minds together to solve this for millions of Indians just like you. This is how Vogo was born as a startup in 2016.
The 3 co-founders behind Vogo are as follows:-
- Anand Ayyadurai – CEO
- Sachin Mittal – CTO
- Padmanabhan – COO
Marketing Strategy – Vogo markets itself as a scooter rental business that rents out gearless scooters to the public. Their ads are mainly focused on helping people who are getting late due to heavy traffic, congested roads and unavailability of the cabs.
After the pandemic, their advertisements were focused on making their customers believe that their services were completely safe to use and the vehicles that they were being provided were sanitized by using a 4 step process so there wasn’t anything to be scared about.
They also used a tagline “Go safe with Vogo” in all their ad campaigns during the pandemic.
User Base & Valuation – As of 2021, Vogo’s android app has been downloaded more than 1 million times on the Google play store.
They also have more than 1 million riders, they have served more than 5 million rides and their customers have collectively travelled more than 30 million kilometers overall. Their valuation is close to $1 billion and they might become a unicorn in the future.
Funding – Vogo has raised a total of $180.8 million in funding over 14 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Feb 18, 2021 from a Series C round. Vogo is funded by a total of 21 investors. Kalaari Capital and Matrix Partners India are the most recent investors. Some of their other investors are as follows:-
- Lightrock
- Stellaris Venture Partners
- Smile Group
- Aspada
- Alteria Capital
- Exponentially I Mobility
Ola has also invested $100 million in the startup. The move was a strategic partnership between the two firms wherein Ola will provide the investment to Vogo to increase its supply, in the form of 100,000 new scooters.
The investment will allow Vogo to cut down on its expense and simultaneously increase its supply chain. In addition to this, Ola will soon also be integrating Vogo’s scooter rental services within its app, thus increasing the potential user base of the service.
Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder & CEO of Ola commented upon the partnership “Our investment in Vogo will help build a smart multi-modal network for first-last mile connectivity in the country.”
Revenues & Losses – In the financial year ending March 2019, the company has grown its expenses 94X with barely 2 times growth in its revenues.
The company filings show that Vogo reported a loss of INR 39.2 Cr in FY19, a 10.8x increase from INR 3.3 Cr in FY18. The losses are 5.6x the company’s total income of INR 6.98 Cr. Notably the Year-on-Year increase in income is 2.63 times, from INR 1.92 Cr in FY18.
Acquisitions – As of 2021, Vogo hasn’t acquired any other startup.
Controversy – As of now they haven’t been in any major controversy but their business operations were hugely affected in 2020 due to the pandemic. A report by Research and Markets released in April 2020, revealed that the global shared mobility market is set to experience a slowdown due to the pandemic.
The gross merchandise value (GMV) for the global market also took a hit and is estimated to grow by a mere 1.1% between 2019 and 2020. However, this can also increase their business operations as with maturity in the market, there is bound to be a shift in consumer expectations around mobility too, and consequently the operating models.
While mobility startups such as Rapido, Yulu & Bounce are back on the road, a lot has changed in two months of the lockdown.
While earlier people were resistant to subscribing to bikes for a long period, human safety is an altogether different and massive consideration, which might force a behavioural change in consumers permanently. And that’s what many bike-sharing and two-wheeler startups are banking on to make the most of a tough situation.
Present Time & Future Goals – Vogo which was started with a vision of renting vehicles for just 30 minutes has expanded into new horizons and now it offers more than you can imagine. It now offers vehicles not just for 30 minutes but for as long as you want.
You don’t pay for the minutes as you now pay for the distance that you travel. What is quite amazing about the technology is the fact that there’s no human to handover the vehicle to you. You just have to register your mobile number and get an OTP.
As soon as you do that, the vehicle unlocks itself and you can start it, all without any human intervention. This technology was completely built in house by the engineers of Vogo. The co-founders say that this technology will allow for the rapid expansion in the future without any hassle.
This proves that automation can help you to reduce time and effort by a huge margin thereby increasing profit margins at the same time. Initially the startup started with only 1 vehicle but then it grew rapidly.
They have big plans for the future where they aim for more than 10 million rides in a month. They also want to expand to all corners of India and provide last mile connectivity to their users. If you grow at the desired pace, then you’ll be able to find a Vogo scooter in every 1 kilometer distance.
If they can achieve this, then they can do surely help a lot of people to save their time and effort by providing a vehicle in a hassle free way.
Conclusion – To sum it up, we need more startups like Vogo which can focus on a certain problem and deliver solutions using technology and entrepreneurship.
The startup is going strong and they’ll find their target audience in big metropolitan cities that are jam packed with people and traffic in every square foot that you have. We wish them all the best for your future. For more news on startups, stay tuned to StartupTrak.
