Two-wheeler financing startup Bike Bazaar stated it has raised Rs 170 crore of fairness funding led by Ladies’s World Banking Asset Administration (WAM) with participation from present buyers together with Elevar Fairness and Faering Capital.
Elevar was the early investor in Bike Bazaar and continues to carry the most important stake within the enterprise.
The corporate intends to make use of the funds to extend its enterprise in rural India and in addition scale its market enterprise for the sale and buy of used two-wheelers.
Based in 2017 by former Bajaj Auto govt Srinivas Kantheti and former Bajaj Finance govt Karunakaran Vadakkepat as a used two-wheeler financing enterprise, Bike Bazaar has now a number of companies inside the two-wheeler section together with new two-wheeler financing, a market for pre-owned two-wheelers, and a brand new electrical automobile financing enterprise moreover further companies like leasing and insurance coverage. It can add servicing as effectively, officers stated.
The founders have spent many years in automotive and its related financing area earlier than beginning up.
“Our technique is to be current throughout the entire lifecycle of the two-wheeler,” Vadakkepat stated. “For instance, somebody who’s trying to purchase a two-wheeler might need to trade his outdated two-wheeler. He can avail of each the financing companies and the resale service from us. We must always have the ability to promote that outdated automobile by means of our market, or completely different pre-owned gross sales channels. We need to add value-added companies like RTO transfers, insurance coverage, and many others, and over time we need to add companies additionally. Truly, we wish each enterprise to feed on the opposite enterprise in order that we are able to leverage prices.”
He stated the corporate is in talks to lift one other Rs 80 crore and can be in superior levels of talks with a world investor to lift a Rs 200-250 crore funding spherical particularly for its EV enterprise.
ET had reported on August 19 that mainstream enterprise capital buyers are turning to the EV startup area at the same time as funding has slowed down within the bigger startup ecosystem.
Vadakkepat stated the corporate remains to be determining find out how to construction the corporate to accommodate the funding particularly for the EV enterprise.
Bike Bazaar claims to have a major presence in smaller cities and operates in additional than 140 cities throughout India with over 1,000 touchpoints. Its financing enterprise has disbursed greater than 3,00,000 two-wheeler loans until date and as of July 2022 it had finished enterprise with a cumulative gross transaction worth of greater than Rs 1,500 crore. Since its inception, the corporate has raised a complete of Rs 400 crore in fairness funding.
Vadakkepat informed ET that the corporate’s buyer base consists of people who find themselves in professions like plumbing, carpentry, and family work, and these folks lack the requisite monetary literacy to avail of credit score and different amenities. Bike Bazaar has arrange a number of money assortment factors to make sure compensation of the loans.
Bike Bazaar companions with a number of banks and NBFCs by means of which it points loans. The startup usually may have 20% publicity to those loans, Vadakkepat stated.
“Ladies’s World Banking is devoted to girls’s financial empowerment and WAM is investing in Bike Bazaar’s demonstrated potential to supply accessible and reasonably priced two-wheeler finance to financially underserved girls in India, concurrently enabling their mobility and growing their asset bases and credit score profiles,” stated Christina Juhasz, chief funding officer of Ladies’s World Banking Asset Administration.
WAM is funded by the German authorities’s Federal Ministry of Financial Cooperation and Growth and The European Union.
