Wicked Ride, the country’s first luxury bike rental company, had its genesis in the idea of every teenager wanting to ride a luxury bike — but finding it prohibitively expensive.

The name is a tribute to the idea that three friends wanted to implement — of buying a luxury bike by pooling their resources and letting it out on hire to other eager bikers so as to pay for its cost and maintenance. They, of course, could enjoy it for free!

That simple plan has now been refined into a working business model by the three friends, Anil G, Vivekananda HR and Varun Agni, who first discussed the idea of doing something together while in college. They got together again a few years later in 2013, having pursued different professional paths.

Anil is a cost accounting gold medallist and qualified secretary, Vivekananda a chartered accountant takes care of business development, marketing and sales, while Varun, an electronics and telecommunication engineer, handles the technology side of the operations.

Six locations Wicked Ride started operations in 2014 and is currently present in six locations — Bengaluru (headquarters), Mysuru, Jaipur, Udaipur, Pune and Bhuj. The company has a fleet of 45 luxury bikes (with engine capacity of 500 cc and above, including Harley-Davidsons, Enfield Thunderbirds and so on).

Most bikes in this segment cost upwards of ₹2 lakh with the costliest being a 1,600 cc Night Rod (Harley-Davidson) worth ₹26 lakh.

Weekends are the busiest for the company with bikes fully rented out, while weekdays see utilisation levels of around 50 per cent. Customers are typically in the age group of 20-35 years, but there are biking fans in the mid-50s too.

The bike rentals for a day range anywhere between ₹2,500 and ₹6,000, Anil said. Revenues for this fiscal are expected to top $1 million, Anil said.

Fleet expansion The company plans to expand its fleet to 2,500 bikes and increase its presence to 23 locations by the end of this fiscal.

Wicked Ride received its first round of angel funding of ₹5 crore in April 2015.

The next round is expected to be completed in the next few months, when the company expects to garner ₹80 crore, Anil said.

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