Bounce showed positive EBIT in September, allowing it to double its B2B offering: CEO

Electric vehicle maker Bounce Infinity is no stranger to cornering. Starting out in 2014 as a premium bike rental company that offered two-wheelers from brands ranging from Harley Davidson to Ducati, before becoming a scooter rental service in 2016, the team has worn several caps.

In 2018, the company introduced a dockless bike-sharing model that allowed users to park their vehicles after use within the city. However, it has been hit hard by the pandemic, which has brought urban mobility to a standstill.

Finally, in 2021, Bounce entered the EV ecosystem and has since managed to significantly reduce its net loss to FY23. The company is yet to report FY24 results, but according to Vivekananda Hallekere, CEO and co-founder of Bounce, it posted positive EBIT for the first time in September and is on track to reach Rs 100 crore in revenue in FY25.

In conversation with Your story Hallekere details Bounce’s overseas ambitions and how it aims to double down on its business-to-business (B2B) offerings amid the e-commerce and fast-commerce boom.

YS: There is intense competition in the Indian e-mobility space. How does Bounce Infinity hope to stay ahead of the curve in this ecosystem?

Vivekananda: Our experience operating a fleet of 30,000 scooters in our ride-sharing business spanning over 200 million kilometers has given us a deep understanding of what is required from electric two-wheelers. That’s why we created our scooters as a platform on which we can continue to develop in terms of battery and motor technology. We don’t have to redo the whole car. We made certain design decisions very early on in our journey, which allows us to remain very flexible.

Today, we are probably the only Indian OEM that has been able to integrate with battery swapping operators. So today, in any delivery case, when workers do not have a place to park their car and charge their scooter, they can use our scooters. That’s one thing we did.

The second is the battery replacement itself, where we have partnered with several battery replacement operators. So you can just show up and start riding, you don’t have to worry about range, you don’t have to worry about where to charge and you pay, it’s like a variable cost and you don’t have to worry about battery life, warranty etc. These things helped us focus on specific use cases without having to spend a lot of money.

YS: How do you hope to expand your business-to-consumer (B2C) services in the future?

Vivekananda: There is intense competition in the B2C segment today. Everyone loses at the cost of a bomb, which means you had to have a lot of money in the bank since you had to raise a lot of funds, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to do it. So we took a different approach.

For the first two years we focused on B2C and sold to dealers all over India etc. But once that marketing and burning intensified, we started focusing on use cases where people require long uptime, high reliability and flexibility from a point decision point of view. . So we’ve looked at these use cases. One such use case is the B2B use case we are talking about. Over the past two quarters, we have been working closely with logistics and fast trade companies.

We recognized the challenges faced by autonomous workers, such as lack of credit and charging infrastructure, and the company developed a turnkey EV rental solution for logistics firms.

By offering long-term leases that include maintenance, insurance and energy costs up to 30% lower than alternatives, they remove the hassle of vehicle ownership. This allows logistics firms to quickly scale by hiring workers without vehicles and increases loyalty by offering rent-to-own options for autonomous workers.

We solved the scooter part of the equation where they sign a long-term lease. Now a logistics company can find people who don’t have a scooter and work with them. So in the last quarter we added about 3,000 scooters for them.

We offered a complete long-term rental solution, managing everything from vehicle return to ownership transfer. Gig workers can even become car owners in 26 to 48 months, increasing loyalty and convenience for delivery companies.

YES: All Bounce Infinity models are equipped with a removable battery allowing for battery replacement. How do you see the battery swapping ecosystem evolving in India today?

Vivekananda: We have two large operators – BatterySmart and Sun. BatterySmart is built on the basis of an e-rickshaw, not a model. Thus, they are primarily strong in markets where e-rickshaws are already operating. But the difference between battery replacement on an e-rickshaw and delivery on a two-wheeler lies in uptime, reliability and other things. An e-rickshaw might be good for downtime. An e-rickshaw is a low-speed vehicle, while two-wheelers are high-speed vehicles.

We used to manage our sharing infrastructure during ride sharing, but now we are focusing on private networks, offering solutions for clients such as bike taxi companies. Today the market knows what is battery replacement, what is the battery replacement price suitable for the worker. With growing awareness among gig workers and increasing demand, battery replacement is gaining momentum.

Major players such as Jio and Shell are expected to enter the market over the next 12-18 months, increasing investment in this capital-intensive sector, which is currently dominated by just two well-funded operators.

YS: What are Bounce’s future plans?

Vivekananda:: So we think the delivery ecosystem will be a good market. This way, we will offer more products that make sense for different use cases. It can be low speed, medium speed with battery or with battery replacement. We will also offer several fixed batteries for specific use cases. We are not married to the same school of thought. I think each use case requires a specific solution. So we will come up with these solutions.

Then another key thing we will try to do is make e-scooters a shared asset by helping companies easily own the vehicles and through transparent lending.

Y.S.: What are your plans for the B2C segment?

Vivekananda: So for now we’ll let it grow organically. Because we have about 20,000 users who have bought our models and are very satisfied. Whatever we introduce, we will also offer B2C. But we will not seek discounts or aggressive pricing. We will try to be very logical about

price for the end consumer.

For example, we have liquid cooled fast charging batteries for B2C use cases that are portable and charge quickly. We are currently looking at LFP fast charging solutions and smaller batteries for B2C use cases where load is lighter.

We were the first to say that we don’t need a 4 kWh battery to use B2C.

happening. A 1.9 kWh battery with a range of 60-70 kWh is sufficient. The entire industry followed suit. In this way, we will go further in terms of the energy required by the user, thus allowing them to reduce the cost of the vehicle.

YS: Can you tell us more about your recent partnership with SUN Mobility to produce 30,000 electric scooters?

Vivekananda: We have partnered with SUN to offer scooters integrated with their battery swap solution. Logistics companies pay us for vehicles, and SUN pays us for energy. This model eliminates the need for SUN to purchase vehicles directly.

So far, we have deployed more than 4,000 scooters on the SUN network. I think we are now looking at not being too dependent on SUN to procure these vehicles and scaling independently, with a current deployment rate of 1500-2000 scooters per month.

YS: How flexible is Bounce in switching between battery replacement platforms depending on customer preference?

Vivekananda: Today, when we work with SUN Mobility, the scooters that are used as part of the partnership’s battery replacement infrastructure can only work with SUN Mobility batteries unless we change the connectors. But our scooters are highly adaptable and we can easily transfer the vehicle to other battery swap operators such as Battery Smart if necessary.

This is, in a sense, the portability of telecom operators. You cannot choose between Airtel and Vodafone for every call, but you make a conscious choice that you want to switch from Airtel to Vodafone. In this way, we have achieved such flexibility in the scooter that we can eliminate the risk of defective battery replacement from both the customer and the company’s point of view. So we do deep integrations and work with SUN.

YS: Can you help me understand when you think the company will become profitable?

Vivekananda: In September, we achieved positive EBIT, covering all expenses including interest, which is a significant milestone for an OEM. We have a strong export and lean, product-oriented operation. We aim to maintain positive EBITDA and achieve net profitability within two quarters, while doubling our turnover.

YS: What do you think the company’s revenue performance will look like in FY25?

Vivekananda: In March this year, if we maintain the current pace of implementation, we should be generating Rs 100 crore plus annual revenue. If we manage to double down, I think there is a high probability that we can achieve annual revenue of Rs 150 to Rs 200 crore.

YS: What are Bounce’s plans for overseas expansion?

Vivekananda: We were very optimistic about Europe, but Europe has had its ups and downs. All the fast commerce companies failed there. But two years ago we thought Europe would become one of our main markets. Our scooters are certified by the European Union. Thanks to this certification, we can sell it in many markets such as the Philippines and Africa. We have been selling our cars in South Africa for almost a year now.

We sell our scooters for around $2000-$2300, which is attractive to both us and the buyer. Bounce competes in this market with China’s NIU. However, we perform better, are more economical and are more durable because it (the scooter) was made for Indian roads.

In the Middle East, we have a high-speed variant with a maximum speed of 90 km/h that we are currently producing. We currently sell the current variants, but there is a need for high speed in the Middle East. Due to highways and minimum speed requirements. So we have a product with 90 km/h data that we are releasing for the Middle East market.

About 5-10% of our total operating income comes from exports, but this is a very high margin at the moment. So, we believe that we have not yet invested in marketing and distribution for export. But this year we are going to double that amount. We are looking at other countries in the Middle East, including Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

YS: Do you expect Bounce to go public soon to raise more funds?

Vivekananda: I think we will decide on the timing. Since we are now an EBIT positive company, we are looking at a number of options, including the IPO markets and private lending, and figuring out where we should allocate the funds. While we are not actively raising capital at this time, we remain open to opportunities with the right investors.