WheelsEMI to raise $35-40 million, to enter into used two-wheeler market with Bike Bazaar

ET learns, the company has so far raised over $31 million through series A and series N and now is in the process of raising a further $35 to $40 million under Series C. The company will be rebranding its front end as the Bike Bazaar from WheelsEMI, while the legal entity may continue to operate with the same name.

Bike Bazaar plans to sell, service, and finance used two wheelers across 263 outlets in FY-22, with a plan of expanding to over 1100 outlets in three years hence grabbing a pie of the entire lifecycle of a used two wheeler as against just financing it currently. The major focus will be mainly in tier 2 ,3 cities and villages.

K Srinivas, co-founder and MD of WheelsEMI says the current used two wheeler market is highly fragmented and is impacted by lack of transparency. Bike Bazaar aims to bridge that gap and participate in entire lifecycle ownership of a used two wheeler – buy, sell, finance, service.

“The second hand industry as per our estimate is around 90 L vehicles per annum mainly focussed on Top 10 urban centres. We believe this is very low thanks to the fragmented nature of the retail offerings and lack of trust amongst both buyers and sellers. We intend to go with our unique on off-line marketplace to tier two and tier three towns. We expect to see half a million bikes through our platform by FY25,” added Srinivas.

The company has so far raised funds from Elevar Equity and Faering Capital, with the fresh round of funding the company aims to grow faster with an accelerated need for personal mobility in the post pandemic stricken world.

WheelsEMI entered the market about four and half years ago with an intention of tapping into unbanked customers with convenient repayment options. Today the company has onboarded more than 1.8 Lakh customers and has over Rs 500 crore of asset under management, which it intends to grow to a billion dollars in the coming five years – catering to the customers looking for finance in rural areas, used two wheelers, electric two wheelers and offering end to end solution in used two wheeler segment through Bike Bazaar.

The founding team of Srinivas along with cofounder V Karunakaran comes with deep domain knowledge and a unique mix of experience, bringing decades of industry knowledge, operational experience, maturity and cohesiveness from working together in two wheeler sales and financing at Bajaj Auto in the past. The team has a deep 360 degree complementary expertise in two wheelers, cutting across marketing, product, distribution, channels, financing, operations and technology.