India's Yulu raises $93M as quick-commerce fuels e-bike demand

As India’s quick-commerce platforms race to deliver everything from groceries to smartphones within minutes, electric mobility startup Yulu has raised $93 million in fresh funding to capitalize on the boom. The Bengaluru-based startup offers electric two-wheelers on weekly subscription plans, letting delivery drivers join the gig economy without buying their own vehicles. With around 50,000 vehicles in its fleet, Yulu says it logs about 1.6 million zero-emission miles each week and powers more than 750,000 deliveries a day. The new funding will let Yulu grow that fleet to 200,000 bikes over the next two years and launch faster electric two-wheelers for new logistics use cases.

The Series C round comprised $63 million in equity led by GEF Capital Partners and $30 million in debt financing. About $5.5 million of the equity was used to buy shares from seed investors whose funds were nearing the end of their investment life, co-founder and CEO Amit Gupta said. The deal valued Yulu at about $170 million post-money, people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch; Gupta declined to comment on the valuation and did not dispute the figure. Existing investors Bajaj Auto and Magna International did not participate in the round after waiving their pre-emptive rights, allowing GEF to acquire its target ownership stake, Gupta said, adding that this is expected to be Yulu’s final equity fundraise before an eventual public listing, with future fleet expansion financed primarily through debt and lease financing.

The business is moving toward becoming profitable before interest and taxes next year, after achieving positive EBITDA last financial year, Gupta said. Revenue grew seven-fold between fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2026, he added, without sharing specifics. Founded as a bike-sharing startup for urban commuters in 2017, Yulu found its biggest opportunity during the COVID-19 pandemic as demand for food and grocery deliveries accelerated; about 95% of its revenue now comes from renting electric bikes to gig workers on weekly subscriptions, with the rest from its station-based rental service in Bengaluru.

To fuel its next growth phase, Yulu is introducing a full-sized, higher-speed electric scooter called Yulu Express, designed for longer-haul e-commerce deliveries, bike taxis, and express parcel services that its slower fleet couldn’t previously cover — about a third of the planned 200,000-vehicle fleet will be made up of this new model, with roughly 500 already running in Bengaluru and being trialed in three additional cities. Yulu partners with almost every major quick-commerce, food-delivery, and e-commerce platform, including Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, though its actual customers are the gig workers who rent the bikes rather than the platforms themselves. Gupta compared Yulu’s role to “the AWS of mobility,” supplying the infrastructure that lets delivery workers operate without third-party logistics providers taking a cut.

Why it matters

The raise shows investors betting that quick-commerce’s delivery-speed race will keep pulling gig workers onto subscription EVs rather than owned vehicles, positioning Yulu’s fleet-as-a-service model as infrastructure for India’s on-demand economy.