Yulu secures $9 million from US International Development Finance Corporation

Yulu management team (from left) Anuj Tewari, Naveen Dachuri, Amit Gupta and RK Misra.

Bajaj Auto-backed shared electric mobility firm Yulu has raised $9 million through debt financing from US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).

DFC proposed the investment in Yulu through its new e-mobility financing team, as a part of the institution's focus on financing clean and zero-emission transportation solutions in India, the firm said in a statement on November 14.

“This financing from a forward-looking institution as the DFC speaks about their belief in Yulu’s vision and the ability to execute at scale, to not just create a green mobility alternative but also to create livelihoods through direct and indirect employment opportunities. We are quite thrilled,” Yulu Chief Financial Officer Anuj Tewari said.

The Bengaluru-based firm plans to utilise the funds to further strengthen momentum towards its vision of enabling green last-mile mobility for people movement and goods deliveries, it said.

Founded in 2017 by RK Misra, Naveen Dachuri, Hemant Gupta and Amit Gupta, Yulu provides urban Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi-NCR and is supported by AI-powered Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform Yulu Energy.

The platform has completed 3.5 million+ battery swaps to date and has enabled the accelerated adoption of electric mobility in India, the company said.

Yulu has enabled tens of thousands of delivery executives to join the workforce and around  75 million green deliveries were made using Yulu EVs to date, and the company helped save 15,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, the statement claimed.

“As the market leader in electric mobility, Yulu has served the first & last-mile mobility needs of millions of users. Yulu fulfils 6 of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and has successfully built a clean mobility business in India based on positive unit economics,” Tewari said.

In September, Yulu raised around $82 million from investors led by Canada’s Magna, a mobility technology company. Existing investors, including Bajaj Auto, also participated in the round.

Yulu formed a new entity, Yulu Energy, with Magna to create nationwide battery charging and swapping infrastructure.

The infrastructure is expected to reduce the upfront cost of buying EVs and will accelerate the adoption of electric mobility in India.