This startup is cultivating sustainable tourism with electric vehicles

For Samarth Kholkar and Sandeep Mukherjee, two longtime friends and corporate employees each with over a decade of experience, 2018 came with an opportunity of a lifetime.

The duo, after quitting their cushy jobs, had been working to develop a tourism project with sustainability at its core. In February 2018, they set up a tourism venture called B Live in Goa, a small state on the southwestern coast of India. Their idea was simple – to provide experiential tours on environmentally friendly electric bikes.

Photo credit: B Live

Their timing couldn’t have been better. As they launched their company, the Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC), run by the state’s tourism ministry, was seeking companies that could conduct tours on electric bikes.

“The tender floated by the government of Goa was in sync with what we were thinking and offering,” Mukherjee told KrAsia. “There were multiple people across the country who participated, but our proposal was accepted by GTDC.”

Kholkar and Mukherjee bagged the contract in July that year and signed a partnership agreement with the Goa tourism ministry to become their exclusive electric vehicle (EV) partner for 20 years. It was a felicitous beginning for B Live. “This gave us a major boost in terms of consolidating our position and starting our operation,” said Mukherjee. “Within three months, we set up the operations, got the e-bikes, and were ready to launch.”

B Live rolled out its services – curated experience-oriented local tours around art, architecture, culture, local life, food, and nature – in association with the Goa tourism department in November 2018. On these tours, riders may see up close how fishermen draw their catch from the sea, learn to make local bread, and even visit a 200-year-old Portuguese house for breakfast.

In just one year, B Live said it completed 4,000 rides. Besides setting up 10 tour circuits in Goa, it has expanded to six more states in 10 locations with one circuit each. According to Mukherjee, the company now conducts about 1,000 electric bike rides every month. Most of them are in Goa.

The startup has created multiple hubs where its bikes can be parked and charged. These locations also serve as the starting and ending points of a tour circuit, which usually runs for 10 km to 12 km and has multiple stops. B Live also collaborates with restaurants, cafes, hotels, and hostels to use their infrastructure to charge its bikes, which can travel up to 50 km.

An open road map

What makes B Live unique is that its first client, the government, is one that took the startup from zero to liftoff in a matter of months.

But that evolution was hardly smooth. The Goan startup was looking to raise seed funding in its initial days, but meetings with potential investors didn’t translate into actual cash.

“Money is the lifeblood of any startup. We were looking to raise angel funding pretty quickly,” Mukherjee said. “It was a bit of a struggle initially, where we had to go and speak with a lot of people, but then later, we got a good response, and now there are many people interested in our startup.”

In the three months after winning the government’s tender, Kholkar and Mukherjee raced to get their first set of customized electric bikes ready. To make that happen, they had to pour in about US$70,000 of their own money.

“We procured these electric bikes from multiple companies, such as Hero, Svitch Bikes, and Tron X, but none of these bikes are off-the-shelf,” said Mukherjee. B Live generated in-house designs, modifying seats to make them larger, replacing tires with puncture-resistant alternatives, and adding better brakes.

A new vanguard