Ali Hasan
Now you can Earn Money with Bounce by Renting out your 2 wheeler
Introduction – Bounce (formerly known as Metro Bikes) is a smart mobility solution, with a mission of making daily commute stress-free, time-saving, reliable, and convenient.
With a breakthrough technology that lets users access the bike with just an OTP, the Keyless bikes, have not only done away with keys, but the whole process of renting a bike has just become devoid of any physical or human intervention.
With Bounce’s new One Way Rental service, users can now pick up and drop the bike anywhere they need to and be done with the ride. This is aimed at providing a seamless first mile and last-mile connectivity to metro users.
Founded in 2014, Bounce aims at decongesting the roads by encouraging commuters to choose public transport by delivering convenient options to rent bikes and reach their destinations from metro stations. It is based in Bangalore, India.
Early Days – Bounce’s parent company, WickedRide Adventure Services Pvt. Ltd., was co-founded in 2014 initially as a luxury bike rental service under the name, WickedRide by
- Vivekananda Hallekere, (CEO and co-founder)
- Anil G, (COO and co-founder)
- Varun Agni (CTO and co-founder),
The company claims that it was the first and the largest luxury bike rental company in India. In 2016, they launched Metro Bikes, to provide last and first mile connectivity to people looking to use public transport or to commute within the city.
In September 2018, after a beta stage, they renamed this service to Bounce and with a fleet of 200 scooters introduced a dock less and keyless bike sharing service to the city of Bengaluru. In 2019, they launched operations in Hyderabad with 2000 dock less scooters and plan to introduce electric scooters to the market soon.
In March 2020, Bounce claims to have started doing more than 130,000 rides a day and to have clocked more than 10 million rides since inception in September 2018. The company also claims to have grown into the world’s fastest-growing bike-sharing start-up.
In 2019, Bounce won a competitive bid to provide its dock less scooter-sharing service at the railway stations in Karnataka. The company introduced its operations across 13 Bengaluru railway stations and helped passengers in the city with first and last-mile connectivity.
Marketing Strategy – Bounce markets itself as a startup that enables their customers to effectively rent a scooter for a couple of hours, for an entire day or you can also lease a vehicle for 1-2 years. The last way enables you to own a 2 wheeler without even purchasing one.
Customers simply need to register and enter an OTP to start their ride. The ride is completely keyless and doesn’t require any human intervention to have access to a 2 wheeler.
During the pandemic, they took various efforts to market that they were taking great care of their customers by thoroughly sanitized scooters using an antimicrobial solution.
They also ensured that their team is using face mask and gloves all the times. They made compulsory use of Aarogya Setu app by ground staff and they also encouraged users to sanitize before and after each ride.
User Base & Valuation – Bounce android app has been downloaded more than 1 million times on the Google play store.
As of 2021, they are present in 6 cities in India but in the future they will expand to further cities. Bounce valuation is more than $500 million which means that they are in the race for becoming a unicorn.
Funding – Bounce has raised a total of $214.2 million in funding over 9 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Mar 3, 2020 from a Debt Financing round. Bounce is funded by a total of 17 investors. InnoVen Capital and B Capital Group are the most recent investors.
Some of their investors are as follows:-
- SCI Investments
- Chiratae Ventures
- Maverick Ventures
- Falcon Edge India
- Accel India
- Vistra ITCL
Revenues & Losses – Bounce’s revenue from operations has scaled 6.3X to Rs 87.54 crore in FY20 from Rs 13.88 crore it earned during FY19.
Its total costs grew in line with revenues, ballooning 6.2X to nearly Rs 542 crore in FY20 as compared to Rs 87 crore spent in total during FY19. Bounce spent Rs 6.2 to earn a single rupee of operating revenue during FY20.
Bounce lost Rs 442.13 crore during the fiscal ended in March 2020, a figure which grew 6.3X as compared to FY19 and is 405% more than the company’s total collections in the same period.
The company started selling products to its riders such as a safety kit, helmets, electric power packs etc during the last fiscal and these sales amounted to 1.3% of the operating revenues. A bulk of operating income still comes from renting of motor vehicles, bicycles making up 98.2% of the revenues.
Acquisitions – Bounce has acquired ofo India on Nov 28, 2018. With this acquisition, Bounce claimed to explore new verticals and deepen its presence in the mobility space.
Controversy – Once there was a major controversy when a series of pictures showing vandalized Bounce bikes in Bangalore has gone viral. The pictures show the yellow-and-red bikes vandalized to varying degrees, and left then to their own devices.
Some bikes have had their tyres removed, and were photographed sitting by the side of the road. Other bikes seem to have been stripped of their tyres and then abandoned. Some bikes have had it even worse, there are bikes pictured which have been opened up, and their engines removed and stolen.
Bounce allows users to ride their bikes and park them whenever they’re done, which means that there are a large number of Bounce bikes just parked around Bangalore. This makes them an easy target for thieves, who strip them for parts.
And vandalized bikes aren’t the only problem that Bounce faces users have also been stealing the yellow helmets that that company provides. Some people have been collecting pictures of people wearing Bounce helmets while not riding Bounce bikes, which means that the helmets were presumably stolen after they took a Bounce ride.
India isn’t the only country where ride sharing apps have had to deal with theft and vandalism. Wukong Bike, a cycle-sharing startup in China, had to shut down after six months of operations after 90 percent of its bikes were stolen.
Indian startups, for their part, have taken measures to prevent their bikes from being damaged. “We are working with the government to cancel driving licences of errant users. We are also rewarding good drivers and imposing fines between Rs 100 and Rs 2,000,” Bounce’s co-founder Vivekananda HR had said in an interview last year.
Present Time & Future Goals – Bounce fleet of electric bikes and scooters can help you to reach your destination in no time, with zero direct vehicle emissions at almost half the cost.
This is now possible because they have designed an in-house, E scooter which is also known as the Bounce E scooter. The scooter is robust, smart, and fully electric. With ample boot space, a light-weight body, and easily swappable batteries, the e-bike is built to suit all your needs for daily commute.
They also provide the facility of renting out your 2 wheeler to earn more money when you’re not using it. Under this program you’ll be able to enroll and rent out your scooter or bike and you’ll enable yourself to earn a passive income even when you’re not actively working for it.
This would be quite a handy option for all those people who have an extra 2 wheeler lying around which they don’t use. If they aren’t using it, then they can definitely rent it out to just make some extra income.
Bounce’s future plans include to raise even more funding which will enable them to expand into more geographies in India as well as hit the billion dollar valuation mark, thus making the startup an official unicorn.
Conclusion – To sum it up, Bounce have achieved so much in terms of technology and providing their customers with solutions to problems that didn’t exist before.
They are going strong but there are many startups like Rapido and Vogo and thus surviving in the market would be quite difficult for them if they don’t have a distinct identity. They offerings are quite compelling for anyone to use Bounce.
If you want to rent out a scooter to earn money, then you can do it and at the same time if you want a scooter because you want to travel from one point to another, then also you can do it. There are also offering electric vehicles which will help the company to solidify its position that truly fulfills its corporate social responsibility.
This will only add to their goodwill and reputation in the long run and will help the company to not only earn more profits but also to stay relevant in the marketplace. We wish them all the best for their future. What do you think about who’s going to be the winner of this battle?
Comment down below and do tell us. We appreciate your comments and we will be replying to the ones we find interesting. Until then, stay tuned to StartupTrak.
