Within the next 3-4 weeks, Yulu, a bike-share startup will launch in Bengaluru, providing hundreds of bicycles for rent. Co-founder of InMobi, Amit Gupta is also one of the co-founders of Yulu.
Bike-sharing has already become popular in places such as China, with companies like Ofo and Mobike, and the US, where LimeBike has received $62 million and Spin has received $8 million in investments. San Francisco also has GoBikes, while New York City has CitBikes, both by the company, Motivate.
“The bike-sharing space is pretty new India,” Gupta told TechCrunch. “At the same time, there are things happening in the country, as far as competition is concerned. We believe that both Ofo and Mobike would like to enter India. It’s a country with one billion people, so it makes sense for them to enter.”
Users of Yulu will be able to rent bikes via an app which will then unlock the bike through a QR code, and then receive a bill based on the duration of their rental. The service will charge by 30-minute intervals.
Yulu was co-founded by four people using funding and assistance from friends and family. The company is working towards securing bike lanes through cities’ governments as well as working toward safe areas to park bicycles.
Gupta said this is the right time for such startups, with 300 million Indians have access to data via smartphones and going cashless, along with the newer focus on smart cities. “I had been happily running first company, InMobi, and very proud of what we’ve done. But in my own mind I had an itch where I was wondering if I could do something that would impact society more closely,” Gupta said to TechCrunch. “I just turned 40 and I thought that if I commit the next five to ten years to solve for traffic and pollution problems, which is becoming big social problem in the country, I could make an impact using technology.” The company has enough funds for the next six to nine months, after which they plan on raising money through investments.
“We will start to talk to institutional investors once we understand our operating metrics and how demand and supply comes together,” Gupta said. Going along with the popularity of bike-sharing, Ola and Zoomcar have both decided to enter the world of bike-share startups.