Bengaluru based online furniture rental startup Furlenco has entered bike rental space. The company has tied up with bike rental startup Bounce for this new venture. Furlenco’s two-wheeler rental service – Bounce sooty – will be available across all the cities where the company is currently offering online furniture services. This includes Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Hyderabad and Chennai.
Notably, Furlenco’s competitor Rentmojo also offers bike rental services, signifying that bike rental space is the new revenue avenue that online furniture companies are seriously looking to leverage.
Furlenco claims on its official website that all the bikes are disinfected – both before and after pickup – to ensure customer’s safety against coronavirus. The company has also stated that its rental bikes are delivered to customers on zero down payment issues and insurance problems. The company even claims to take care of maintenance of the scooties.
Furlenco was recently in news for raising $10 Mn or INR 76.04 crore in a round that was a mix of equity and debt funding. The startup boasts Bollywood superstar Amir Khan among its many high profile investors. Its other investors include Lightbox, Dabur sicon Saket Burman, Kris Gopalakrishnan and Gautham Radhakrishnan.
Meanwhile, bike and two-wheeler startup Bounce has been on a collaboration mode as it looks to consolidate its position in the long term rental and subscription arena. The company had recently tied up with used-two wheeler marketplace CredR to offer second-hand bikes to customer on a long term basis.
Bounce has also recently launched a new electric bike in the market in order to strengthen its position in the refurbished market. Techpluto had exclusively reported about this development.
With people avoiding public transportation in the wake of coronavirus crises, some startups are increasingly seeing massive opportunities in two-wheeler rental space. Since two-wheelers (unlike public transportation) helps in promoting social distancing, startups like Furlenco presumably believe that two wheeler rental space offers them good revenue earning opportunities.