Bike Bazaar, an India-based marketplace specializing in used motorcycle sales and financing, has raised $21.3 million (INR 170 crores) in Series D funding round.
According to a report, the funding round was led by Women’s World Banking Asset Management (WAM), along with participation from existing investors Elevar Equity and Faering Capital. The latest round takes Bike Bazaar’s total funding to date to about $50 million — more than half of which was raised in the last six months alone.
Headquartered in Pune, Bike Bazaar specializes in the sales, financing, insurance, and life-cycle services of used motorcycles. It provides financing through its parent company WheelsEMI.com, which claims to have served about 305k customers across 144 locations in India, disbursing about $193 million in loans.
Commenting on the funding round, Srinivas Kantheti, MD of Bike Bazaar, said, “With a founding team that has spent a significant time understanding rural and semi-urban motorcycles customers, Bike Bazaar has always been about creating customer-centric offerings. Today, we have significant momentum with our unique Direct Collection Model (DCM), reaching 1,000+ touchpoints across 140+ Indian cities. We also have one of the industry’s best GNPA scores and are bullish to scale.”
In line with Kantheti’s statement, WheelsEMI claims that 70% of first-time borrowers are from rural and semi-urban areas. Bike Bazaar intends to use the proceeds from the Series D round to penetrate deeper into rural India and scale its marketplace business for used motorcycles. The company is hoping to particularly cater to women who are in need of private transport — which is also aligned with the strategy of the investor, WAM.
Christina Juhasz, CIO of WAM, said, “Women’s World Banking is dedicated to women’s economic empowerment, and WAM is investing in Bike Bazaar’s demonstrated potential to provide accessible and affordable motorcycle finance to financially underserved women in India, simultaneously enabling their mobility and developing their asset bases and credit profiles. We are inspired by Bike Bazaar’s clear focus on increasing women ridership, especially in Tier II and III towns and villages across India.”
Founded by Karunakaran Vadakkepat and Srinivas Kantheti in 2017, Bike Bazaar is a motorcycle marketplace with a focus on rural and semi-urban cities. It has both online and offline presence in 14 locations across India.