Two-wheeler rental startup Vogo raises funding from existing investors; eyes profitability by year-end

Self-ride two-wheeler rental service Vogo has raised $11.5 million funding as an extension of series C round from its existing investors including Lightrock, Kalaari, Matrix Partners, and Stellaris Venture Partners. The company said it will deploy the capital towards expanding its fleet and to “increase focus on achieving profitability by improving unit economics, asset utilisation and to optimise marketing growth through better consumer understanding.” With net positive contribution margins, Vogo hopes to turn profitable by the end of this year.

Launched in 2016 by the alumni of IITs and IIMs – Anand Ayyadurai, Padmanabhan Balakrishnan, and Sanchit Mittal, Vogo caters to personal mobility solutions through two-wheeler rides to daily commuters. Vogo claimed to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine learning (ML), and Internet of Things (IoT), to build industry-first solutions to offer automated riding experience to its riders. The company provides services across three travel preferences – Vogo Now for short durations, Vogo Keep for longer-term — a day to 2 months, and Vogo Flexi Keep that offers customization of rental plans basis the need.

“We are committed to build on our strengths and roll-out a profitable Electric Vehicle offering going forward. Having significantly improved our unit-level profitability in our existing business this year, we intend to utilize this capital to strengthen our product line and focus on better customer experience going forward,” said Anand Ayyadurai, Co-founder and CEO, Vogo. “We continue to support them despite the uncertainty in funding in the sector because we believe this is the team that has the vision and execution to build a large mobility platform for the Indian customer,” said Vaidhehi Ravindran of Lightrock. Vogo claimed to have served over 10 million rides covering about 130 million kilometres since 2016. The company intended to expand its fleet and ride volumes significantly in the next 18 months.