PayU India sees another top exit; Xiaomi’s Shunwei Capital may invest in Yulu: Reports

Online payment company PayU’s India founder and managing director Shailaz Nag has resigned from the firm, The Economic Times has reported. The departure comes just days after Jitendra Gupta, managing director of India operations heading its lending business LazyPay, resigned from PayU, a subsidiary of South African media and e-commerce group Naspers.

Co-founded by Nag and Nitin Gutta, PayU India was launched in 2011 as a unit of Gurugram-based ibibo Group, which is controlled by Naspers Group. In February 2014, ibibo hived off PayU India to Naspers for a stake in the global payments business of the Cape Town-based conglomerate.

In September 2016, PayU had bought Mumbai-based rival Citrus Pay for $130 million (Rs 865 crore then). Post the acquisition, Citrus Pay’s Amrish Rau was appointed as the India CEO of PayU and Nag assumed the role of an MD.

Earlier this year, Rau had stepped down from the company to take up a broader role at Naspers. With Naga, Gupta and Rau leaving, Naspers is looking at restructuring the PayU India leadership completely.

Yulu

Bengaluru-based e-bike-sharing startup Yulu Bikes Pvt. Ltd is in advanced stages of discussions with a slew of investors including Chinese venture capital firm Shunwei Capital to raise a Series A round of over Rs 100 crore ($15 million), financial daily Mint reported. Shunwei Capital was launched by smartphone maker Xiaomi’s founder Lei Jun.

InMobi’s former chief business officer Atul Satija is also likely to participate in the round.

According to the report, Yulu has received commitments from its existing investors including Blume Ventures and a number of high net-worth individuals for the upcoming round.

Citing persons in the know it did not name, the report said the round may exceed Rs 100 crore if Shunwei Capital participates. Yulu will be valued between Rs 350 crore and 400 crore in this round.

An earlier report from The Economic Times had said two-wheeler manufacturer Bajaj Auto is in talks with Yulu to invest up to $8 million.

Yulu was founded in 2017 by Amit Gupta, co-founder of mobile advertising technology unicorn InMobi, along with RK Misra, Naveen Dachuri and Hemant Gupta.

It uses Internet of Things (IoT) to offer dockless e-bikes on a pay-per-user basis. Users can unlock e-bikes by scanning QR codes on their devices. Yulu’s pickup and drop-off centres are spread across Bengaluru. Users do not need licence to ride e-bikes.

In March last year, Yulu raised $7 million in a seed funding round from Blume Ventures, Binny Bansal (Flipkart co-founder), Naveen Tewari (founder and CEO, InMobi) and Girish Mathrubootham (founder and CEO of Freshworks).

Last month, Yulu partnered with ride-hailing unicorn Uber to offer e-bikes to users on a pilot basis in Bengaluru. Yulu also plans to offer services in other cities.