Yulu Raised $93 Million. A bet on Blinkit & Porter services or just a fomo?

You might have seen Yulu's electric bikes zipping around Indian cities. They are small, quiet and increasingly common among delivery riders. But here's the interesting part: the company behind them has just raised $93 million.

The round includes $63 million in equity led by GEF Capital Partners and $30 million in debt. Yulu plans to use the money to expand its fleet from around 50,000 vehicles to 200,000 within two years, while increasing its presence from 12 cities to 20.

At first glance, it looks like another startup funding story. But there's a more interesting question hiding underneath: why are investors putting $93 million into an electric mobility company that is still making a net loss?

The bike isn't really the product

To understand Yulu's business, imagine you're a delivery executive. You need a two-wheeler to make deliveries, but buying one means paying for the vehicle, insurance, maintenance and other running costs. Yulu offers another option: access to an electric vehicle without having to own it.

For the rider, the vehicle isn't really an asset to own. It's a tool to earn money. And that distinction has become increasingly important as India's gig economy has grown.

During the pandemic, Yulu shifted its focus towards rental services for gig workers. As food delivery, e-commerce and quick commerce expanded, the demand for affordable last-mile mobility expanded with them.

That is where Yulu found its opportunity. Instead of trying to convince every Indian consumer to replace a petrol scooter with an EV, it focused on people who use two-wheelers as part of their livelihood.

Quick commerce changed the equation

Think about what happens when you order groceries through a quick-commerce app. The warehouse may be close to your home, the order may be packed within minutes, but someone still has to cover those final few kilometres.

That final trip is where economics gets interesting. A delivery worker needs a vehicle, and buying one isn't always attractive for someone who may not want to take on the upfront cost and maintenance burden.

Yulu essentially sits in the middle of this equation. It provides the vehicle while the rider provides the labour. The more frequently the vehicle is used, the more revenue that vehicle can potentially generate.

And that brings us to the numbers.

Revenue is growing. But so are the expenses

Yulu's operating revenue nearly doubled in FY25 to ₹237.4 crore, compared with ₹119.9 crore a year earlier. At the same time, its net loss narrowed from ₹142.8 crore to ₹126 crore.

That's encouraging. Revenue is growing quickly, while losses are moving in the opposite direction.

But Yulu isn't profitable yet. Its total expenditure increased 36% to ₹350.6 crore in FY25 from ₹258.3 crore the previous year.

So the company is still spending considerably more than it earns.

Yulu says it has been operationally profitable since April 2025 and is targeting monthly PAT profitability next year. But operational profitability isn't the same as net profitability. Once depreciation, finance costs and other expenses are accounted for, a company can still report a net loss, which is what Yulu's FY25 numbers show.

And this distinction matters because Yulu's business is asset-heavy.

The real question is: how much does one bike earn?

Unlike a software startup, Yulu can't simply add another million users without adding significant costs. Its business depends on physical vehicles. Those vehicles have to be purchased, maintained and eventually replaced.

So the important question isn't just whether a Yulu bike makes money on a particular day.

It's whether that bike generates enough revenue throughout its useful life to recover the capital invested in it and still leave a healthy profit.

This is also why the $30 million debt component of the latest fundraise matters. Debt can work well for an asset-heavy business when the assets generate predictable cash flows. But if a vehicle sits idle, the revenue disappears while the financing obligation remains.

And Yulu is about to test this equation at a much larger scale.

50,000 to 2,00,000 Bikes: Is scaling the only way to profitability?

Yulu wants to quadruple its fleet within two years. More vehicles could mean more revenue, but only if those vehicles remain highly utilised.

Imagine doubling the fleet while utilisation falls. You would have more vehicles, more maintenance costs and more capital tied up in assets, without necessarily generating twice the revenue.

That's why the metric worth watching isn't simply fleet size. It's revenue and profit generated per vehicle.

Yulu is also trying to increase the number of ways those vehicles can make money. The company plans to expand into e-commerce logistics, intra-city deliveries and bike taxis, while introducing higher-payload electric scooters.

In FY25, shared electric mobility generated around ₹214.7 crore, while sales of its Yulu Wynn electric scooter contributed about ₹22.7 crore.

That gives Yulu more opportunities to keep its fleet productive across different use cases.

The funding is the beginning, not the end

Yulu has already shown that there is demand for its model. Its operating revenue nearly doubled in FY25, its net loss narrowed, and the company says its operations have been profitable since April 2025.

But going from 50,000 vehicles to 200,000 changes the game.

The question is no longer whether Yulu can build an electric mobility business. It is whether it can scale that business without scaling its losses at the same speed.

And that's what makes the $93 million fundraise interesting.

Yulu isn't simply raising money to put more electric bikes on Indian roads. It is betting that India's growing delivery and logistics economy can support a much larger electric mobility network, and that this network can eventually turn into a sustainably profitable business.

The funding gives Yulu the fuel to scale. Now it has to prove that 200,000 vehicles can create more value than 50,000 ever could.