Shared electric vehicle mobility firm Yulu’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) has crossed $30 million. The company turned Ebitda positive on growing demand from the quick commerce segment, food delivery services, and policy tailwinds. 

Yulu, which operates over 40,000 electric vehicles (EVs), aims to double its on-ground presence to 100,000 EVs by 2025.

The company’s mobility use cases include the Yulu Miracle and Yulu DeX. In 2023, it also launched its first electric two-wheeler for personal ownership, the Wynn.

The company will continue to have its last-mile rental bikes for individual consumers for last-mile connectivity, Yulu’s focus, however, has shifted to servicing the growing demand among gig workers and quick commerce delivery personnel, as the company looks to add 3,000-4,000 vehicles per month for it.

“The growth focus is on our Yulu DeX business, which is adding 3,000-4,000 vehicles per month. By 2025, we aim to double our fleet to 100,000 EVs, with 90 per cent in last-mile delivery,” said cofounder and chief executive officer (CEO) Amit Gupta.

“Before COVID, our use case for first- and last-mile mobility tanked to zero. However, we saw a new segment emerge—gig workers delivering goods and groceries. This transformation led to 85 per cent of our revenue coming from that customer segment, compared to almost zero before,” he added.

The company has around 5,000 bikes available for shared mobility for individuals and will look at adding about 1,000 more a month by the end of this year.

On geographic expansion, Gupta said, “While our main bandwidth is focused on tier-1 cities like Delhi, NCR, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Hyderabad, we’ve launched a franchise model for tier-2 cities like Kochi, Indore, and Pondicherry to meet demand there.”

Yulu funding

Founded in 2017 by Gupta, RK Misra, Naveen Dachuri, and Anuj Tewari, Yulu has raised $123 million, so far. In September 2022, the company raised $82-million Series B funding round led by Magna International Inc.

To finance its expansion, the company will raise $100 million in Series C debt and equity funding over the next 12 months.

“We’re raising funds to support expansion, including launching a new vehicle product, Ulu Express, aimed at e-commerce and longer-distance deliveries. Our next big milestone will be reaching profitability at the EBITDA and PBT levels, which we aim to achieve before going public,” he said.

Other initiatives

Earlier this year, the company rolled out the Yulu Business Partner (YBP) initiative, a franchise channel that has seen Yulu’s shared leisure and goods mobility services rolling out in non-metro cities like Indore, Kochi, Tirunelveli and Pondicherry. 

Yulu also plans to cater to more use cases within mobility by launching a mid-speed electric two-wheeler, which will be unveiled before the year-end. With a top-speed of 45 kmph, the EV will cater to additional use cases like bike taxis, e-commerce deliveries, long-distance food orders, and courier services, besides higher-payload goods deliveries.

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