WheelsEMI: affordable mobility solutions for low to middle income communities
The Opportunity
India is the world’s largest two-wheeler market with over 20 million units sold annually. Typically, two-wheeler users in India are farmers, traders, milkmen, vegetable/fruit vendors, plumbers, carpenters, masons, delivery executives, housemaids, beauticians, nurses, tutors, sales personnel et al. Added to these are young students just entering college or travelling to coaching classes, not to mention housewives who need a run-around vehicle.
A two-wheeler is an essential means to boost the employability of low to middle income group communities (LMI) in both urban as well as rural areas. Not owning a two-wheeler seriously compromises their ability to earn a living, and in the case of youth, compromises their ability to get a good education and hence future employability. It has also been proven that a woman on two wheels is more empowered and has a better chance of making an independent living.
Hence helping low- and middle-income users, by providing them the much-needed access to finance for two-wheelers is an urgent gap which needs to be met.
The WheelsEMI Proposition
Led by a team with unparalleled domain expertise, WheelsEMI provides a range of affordable solutions along the two-wheeler lifecycle, driving mobility for working families. These include financing to purchase new and preowned two wheelers, access to green bikes, insurance, servicing and spare parts management and a transparent marketplace for two wheelers. The company aims to streamline a market that has traditionally been fragmented and unorganized.
Affordable solutions along the entire lifecycle
The WheelsEMI spectrum of product and services is captured below:
This lifecycle management approach drives a higher customer lifetime value at a lower customer acquisition cost through solution-oriented offerings and a strong customer connect, thereby resulting in strong RoE.
Reach
Over three years WheelsEMI has acquired more than 100,000 customers and is present in over 250 locations with a rapidly expanding footprint.
Investors
Funded by two marquee investors Elevar Equity and Faering Capital, the company is set to grow at a very fast pace considering that personal mobility is an ever increasing need in a pandemic struck world.
The Team
The founding team comes with strong domain knowledge and a unique mix of experience, bringing decades of industry knowledge, operational experience, maturity and cohesiveness from working together in two-wheeler sales and financing at Bajaj.
Srinivas Kantheti, Co-Founder and Managing Director brings over 30 years of experience, of which 14 years were in automotive sales and financing. He is the former President of Bajaj Motorcycles, a $2.5Bn+ business with over 600 dealers and 3000 sub-dealers (one of the largest automobile networks). He was responsible for two wheeler domestic sales, marketing, service and spares business.
Karunakaran Vadakkepat, Co-Founder and Joint Managing Director, brings over 30 years of experience, having played leadership roles in retail and channel financing in automotive and consumer durables - across Bajaj Auto Finance, ICICI Bank and Transamerica. Most recently, he led the two and three-wheeler finance business at Bajaj. He brings rich leadership and domain expertise in sales, dealer funding, inventory funding, credit, collections and risk.