Ex-Myntra CEO, entrepreneurs invest in scooter rental startup Vogo
Scooter rental startup Vogo has raised Rs 7.9 crore in funding from a group of HNIs including former Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan, entrepreneurs K Ganesh and Srini Anumolu, and SVG Media founder Manish Vij.
“We are excited to welcome Ananth, Srini, Ganesh and Manish to the VOGO family. They are seasoned entrepreneurs with a strong track record of creating large, valuable companies,” said Anand Ayyadurai, co-founder and CEO of Vogo.
Regulatory filings showed that the investment was made through the Stellaris Founder Network which acquired 8,878 convertible Series B preference shares on June 3, 2019. While Vogo announced the investment, it declined to comment on its value.
The investment is part of Vogo’s ongoing Series B funding round which saw the company raising Rs 62.8 crore from Kalaari Capital, Stellaris Venture Partners, Matrix Partners and Pawan Munjal’s family office earlier this year.
“The traction and rapid growth they have seen is a real validation of their strong product-market fit and a testament to their commitment towards providing superior customer experience with a dense network of VOGO stations,” said Ananth Narayanan, former CEO of Myntra, in a statement.
It follows ride hailing giant Ola’s commitment to invest $100 million, part in equity, part in debt in Vogo, for the company to acquire as many as 100,000 scooters in the next 12 months. Since that announcement, Vogo says it has added close to 6,000 scooters, including in Mysore where it now has over 1,000 vehicles.
Vogo has in total raised roughly around $15 million in equity funding so far, while rival Bounce has raised close to $92 million, bulk of which came in a $72 million Series C round led by B Capital and Falcon Edge. Both companies use debt to finance the purchase of scooters on their platform.
