With mobility for those providing essential services being the need of the hour and deliveries taking precedence, bike rental startup Bounce has offered its own scooters to service personnel if they don’t have one.
“Companies into essential deliveries, you can hire people without scooters and we will offer them scooters. We have 1000 electric scooters in Bangalore and 20k plus petrol scooters. Can provide scooters across 8 cities,” Bounce founder and CEO Vivekananda Hallekere tweeted.
In addition to this, the startup launched Scooterhero, where people whose two-wheelers are lying idle and can sign up their bikes, which can be used by frontline workers. Public transportation has been unavailable since the lockdown began, making commute difficult for those without their own vehicles.
“Several frontline warriors are facing difficulty in mobility, while millions of scooters are lying idle across the country. Bounce aims to ease transportation for essential service providers with this initiative,” the company said in a statement.
Anyone who wishes can enlist their bike on the company’s website either for free, or can charge a daily rental of up to Rs 80 per day. This can potentially help “thousands of people from the economically weaker section to earn some money from their idle assets,” Bounce said.
People can list their bikes for use or rent at scooterhero.bounceshare.com.
CEO Vivekananda also tweeted that for those worried about risks of virus, Bounce will sanitise the bike on their cost when the scooter is being returned to the individual.
Companies working in essential services can reach out to him for a database, he added.
Bounce too was hit due to COVID-19, and the founders Vivekananda Hallekere, Varun Agni and Anil Giriraj have taken a 100% cut in pay. The rest of the staff will be foregoing 20-60% of their compensation. In lieu of the interim salary cut, employees will get ESOPs (employee stock option plan)