One of the hopefuls in the space has raised a large amount of money to grow their business. Bolt, the startup and app of the same name that operates on-demand ride hailing, shared cars and scooters, and restaurant and grocery delivery, has raised over $600 million at a valuation of over $7 billion. The funds will be used to expand to new countries and to bring more consumers and partners to its app, as well as newer business lines, such as its 15-minute grocery delivery option Bolt Market.
In an interview this week, founder and CEO Markus Villig said that all of the business units are growing. Villig said that its most mature business, ride hailing, is seeing double digit growth, while newer businesses, being smaller, are expanding even faster. Private cars are a bad thing and people want to use other forms of mobility. Bolt is working with more city governments to build out its services as part of their updated transportation strategies.
The round was co-led by Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management and Research Company and other backers.
The company raised 600 million at a valuation of over 4 billion only four months earlier in a Series E led by Sequoia. Bolt has more than 100 million customers in 45 countries and 400+ cities. The company had 75 million customers when it announced the previous round.
The Pandemic had a major chilling effect on people being willing to go into a vehicle where they have to sit in a closed-in space with another person. The situation was compounded when things picked up again and many services are suffering from a shortage of drivers.
Bolt faced some short-term fluctuations in demand when the lockdowns first started. Villig said it will pay between 10% and 20% better than competitors, and that it has made attracting and keeping drivers a major focus.
There is a lack of supply on these platforms, so we have focused on taking the most partner-friendly lowest commission. Villig said that Bolt has seen monthly revenues double compared to sales before Covid.
Bolt was founded eight years ago in Tallinn, Estonia, with a mission to bring ride hailing to emerging markets and countries where others likeUber had yet to gain a strong foothold, a strategy that it used to expand modestly across regions like Central and Eastern Europe and Africa. Didi sold its stake in Bolt last year.
Bolt found that a lot of its learnings from those first launches could be applied in more developed countries, with more lucrative payoffs.
We started in Eastern Europe and Africa because they needed more. It made sense that they had lower car ownership and higher unemployment. It is easier to grow in Western Europe because they are developed markets. If you can make this model work in a cheap market like London or Sweden, it will be easier. The unit economcis are better because of the higher prices. It is not a perfect system. He said that the trade-off is more regulations and limits in developed markets.
Bolt is moving beyond cars to scooters and couriers and now also food delivery services as part of its scaling strategy. Offering multiple services within a single app not only helps Bolt bring in new customers and cross sell to them, but it does so with essentially zero marketing costs by putting all of the options and cross-promotions within a single app, said Villig.
The synergies and the shared costs between the different sectors are two elements that set us apart. Bolt is able to build more services off the back of each other because most of his competitors are focused on one thing. We are passing on those savings to our customers.
Andrew Reed, a partner at Sequoia, said in a statement that they were excited to deepen their partnership with Bolt. We believe in the global potential for technology and entrepreneurship, and have been inspired by Bolt's growth from a small town to over 400 cities and 100 million customers across Europe and Africa. We want to help them expand their footprint, increase their product offering and improve the quality of life in cities for the long term.
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