Vogo, an Indian scooter sharing network announced its strategic partnership with Ola earlier this week. As part of this partnership, Ola, one of the world’s largest ride-hailing platforms, will boost Vogo’s supply by investing in 1,00,000 scooters, worth $100 million. Ola announced in an official statement that they had also invested in Vogo as part of the company’s Series A fundraising which saw participation from Matrix Partners India and Stellaris Venture Partners.
This funding will give Vogo a strategic supply advantage without having to incur significant capital expenditure. Additionally, Vogo’s offerings will also be available for Ola’s customer base of over 150 million users, directly from the Ola app soon.
Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO at Ola said, “Ola is committed to building a robust mobility ecosystem in India, creating a deep impact on livelihoods and how citizens get around. Our investment in Vogo will help build a smart multi-modal network for first-last mile connectivity in the country. Their automated scooter-sharing platform, backed by Ola’s expertise in this space can help transform our cities. Together, we are thrilled to be at the forefront of India’s rapidly growing micro-mobility market.”
The scooter sharing network company is currently based in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Having served over 20 million kilometres on its platform, each one of their scooters comes with an IoT device that allows the customer to access the key via an OTP. This eliminates the need for human intervention and offers consumers a seamless experience. Scooter sharing addresses the twin challenges of pollution and congestion, while also providing a credible alternative to bridge India’s micro mobility needs.
Anand Ayyadurai, founder and CEO at Vogo said, “Vogo has seen rapid growth in the last five months, growing over 10 times in scale. We are thrilled to have Ola join us on this journey and help turbocharge our growth by providing us access to strategic and capital efficient supply as well as access to millions of customers on its platform in the time to come. Ola’s deep understanding of mobility and their investment to power additional supply are extremely valuable to Vogo. As we enter into our next phase of growth, we look forward to executing our synergistic vision of the future: smart and sustainable mobility for all.”
