Vogo, a scooter rental startup raises series A funds from Ola, HeroMotoCorp

A scooter sharing start-up Vogo, has raised up tp $6-7 million in a Series A funding round which was led by the ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd and a Hero MotoCorp chairman Pawan Munjal, according to a person familiar with the matter. The participants of the funding round include Stellaris Venture, Angel Investors and the Matrix Partners India Vogo said in the statement without disclosing the size of the funding.

Vogo was founded in the month of February in the year2016. Vogo lets the customers rent the scooters for short and one-way trips at different locations in Hyderabad and Bangalore. The average trip of the same is about 5 kms. The application enables the customers to locate and also pick up their bikes at one particular point and also drop them off at some other point without the need for any docking station.

There has been growing investors in the estimated $4.5 billion two wheeler rental market in India this year. Also, the Metro Bikes has raised $12.2 million from the Sequoia Capital India and the Accel Partners in one of the largest Series A funding rounds those are raised by the local start up.

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“The rise in urban congestion requires a transformation in the way India commutes,” said Tarun Davda, managing director at Matrix Partners India, in a statement. “Vogo’s localized approach of creating a scooter-sharing network through an automated, convenient and cost effective model represents one such transformation.”

Vogo was in advanced talks to raise Rs 40-45 crores from Ola, Stellaris and Matrix Partners. Also, more than 27000 users have commuted the distance of approximately six million km thereby using the Vogo mobile application according to the statement released by the firm. The start-up do not offer any long-distance rides and even plans to add more than 1,000 pickup points in Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

“Our goal is to make a Vogo scooter available in every nook and corner of the country that’s plagued with issues like traffic congestion, pollution and growing population,” said Anand Ayyadurai, founder and chief executive officer of Vogo. Ayyadurai was an associate director at Flipkart and co-founded Vogo with Padmanabhan Balakrishnan and Sanchit Mittal. Ola’s investment in Vogo indicates that the company’s growing interest is now expanding beyond the cabs and is also becoming a one-stop platform for the urban transportation.

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