Indian electric mobility startup Yulu has raised $93 million in new funding, as demand grows for delivery vehicles among quick-commerce platforms competing to deliver groceries, smartphones and other goods within minutes.
The Bengaluru-based company offers electric scooters through a weekly subscription that enables delivery drivers to enter the gig economy without purchasing their own vehicles. Yulu says its fleet comprises about 50,000 vehicles, travels approximately 1.6 million miles weekly with no emissions, and supports more than 750,000 deliveries each day.
Funding for expansion and the pre-IPO stage
The Series C round consisted of $63 million in equity financing led by GEF Capital Partners and $30 million in debt financing. Approximately $5.5 million of the equity component was used to purchase stakes from early investors whose funds were nearing the end of their investment cycles, co-founder and chief executive Amit Gupta said in an interview with TechCrunch.
According to people familiar with the deal cited by TechCrunch, Yulu’s post-money valuation reached approximately $170 million. Gupta declined to comment on the valuation but did not deny the figure. Existing investors Bajaj Auto and Magna International did not participate in the round after waiving their preemptive rights, allowing GEF to obtain its targeted ownership stake.
Gupta said the company expects this to be its final equity funding round before a potential public listing, with future fleet expansion to be funded primarily through debt and lease financing. He also said the company achieved positive EBITDA in the last financial year and is moving toward achieving earnings before interest and taxes next year, while its revenue grew sevenfold between fiscal years 2023 and 2026, without disclosing revenue figures.
A faster scooter for new logistics use cases
Yulu began operations in 2017 as a bike-sharing company focused on urban transportation, but found its biggest growth opportunity during the COVID-19 pandemic as demand for food and grocery delivery accelerated. Around 95% of its revenue currently comes from renting electric scooters to gig economy workers through weekly subscriptions, while the remainder comes from a station-based rental service in Bengaluru. The company has also abandoned an earlier plan to sell scooters directly to consumers.
Yulu is preparing to launch a full-size, higher-speed electric scooter called Yulu Express, designed for long-distance e-commerce deliveries, bike taxi services and rapid parcel delivery—use cases that its slower fleet did not previously cover. Gupta said approximately one-third of the targeted fleet of 200,000 vehicles will consist of this model.
Bajaj Auto manufactures Yulu’s current low-speed fleet, while the faster scooter comes from another Indian company that Gupta did not name. About 500 of the new scooters are already operating in Bengaluru, and trials are underway in three additional cities.
Geographic expansion and customer model
Yulu currently operates in 12 Indian cities; it manages its own operations in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR and Hyderabad, while working with franchise owners in eight other markets. It aims to reach approximately 20 cities over the next year, with Chennai and Pune among its leading expansion destinations.
Gupta said Yulu works with most major quick-commerce, food delivery and e-commerce platforms, including Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart. However, the company’s direct customers are gig economy workers who rent the scooters, not the platforms themselves. Gupta described Yulu’s role as resembling “AWS for mobility,” providing the infrastructure that enables delivery workers to operate without having part of their income deducted by third-party logistics providers.