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Electric scooter-sharing company Mobycy is looking to raise $25-$30 million in funding over the next year or two.
Akash Gupta, Founder and CEO, Mobycy, told BusinessLine : “We are sufficiently funded to run our operations for the next 12 months.”
Mobycy is currently operational in Gurugram, parts of Delhi on a pilot-project basis, and Hyderabad’s HITEC city.
Gurugram has its biggest fleet, with 500 e-scooters, while Hyderabad has about 100. Gupta said the company plans to invest in expansion.
“It’s density rather than expansion that works in this business. Rather than expanding to 50 cities, I would want to be focussed on five cities and go deeper in them,” he said.
The start-up manufactures its own e-scooters that are optimised for the Indian market and consumers, according to Gupta.
The company has its own design lab where its design engineers conduct consumer tests.
“Then we find start-ups or manufacturers like us who have the capability and desire, and build up scale through them,” he said.
Short commute solution
Mobycy currently has three-four such manufacturers located in the NCR, Ludhiana and other locations that work exclusively with the company.
“Our current capacity is to build 3,000 to 4,000 e-scooters a month,” Gupta said.
The company has dabbled in cycle sharing as well, but found that e-scooters are the best way to tackle the micro-mobility (short distance commute) issue. “We are staying away from cycles right now. They are not the best way to solve the Indian last-mile problem. When it comes to commuting, the preference for cycles is a niche segment, not a mass segment,” Gupta said.
Having also tried e-bike options, Gupta said that an electric bicycle’s price is very close to an e-scooter’s price.
He added that consumers would go for an e-scooter over a cycle because of form-factor preference and reduced effort.
The company is also looking to aggregate charging stations in the NCR, by installing charging points at any spot that has electricity connection and offers sufficient parking space.
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