One of Europe’s pioneering super-app’s, Bolt, has just announced its largest-ever funding round to further scale and accelerate the transition from owned cars to shared mobility in cities.
The €628 million investment round was led by Sequoia Capital and Fidelity Management and Research Company LLC with participation from Whale Rock, Owl Rock (a division of Blue Owl), D1, G Squared, Tekne, Ghisallo, and others, and takes Bolt’s valuation to €7.4 billion.
Founded in 2013, the Tallinn-based startup wants to contribute to building cities that are more people and environmentally friendly through reducing congestion, decreasing pollution, and augmenting green spaces. The vision is to harness shared mobility to enable city-dwellers to easily move around in a safer and more sustainable way. What started out as a ride-sharing taxi app, has now grown into a European titan of sustainable mobility.
In 2021, Bolt had plenty of exciting news and has started 2022 with the tank full and the pedal pressed to the max with this new funding. In December, the company announced a range of new safety features to be incorporated on its scooter-sharing network, demonstrating how it is a reliable partner for safe mobility in European cities.
Scooter-sharing is just one part of Bolt’s suite of sustainable products, which are currently used by more than 100 million customers in 45 countries and over 400 cities across Europe and Africa. Its services range from ride-hailing to micromobility with e-scooters and electric bikes to food and parcel delivery, including its ride-hailing service; car-sharing service Bolt Drive (launched in May 2021); Bolt Food, which enables customers to order meals from restaurants; and Bolt Market, a 15-minute grocery delivery service.
Markus Villig, Founder and CEO at Bolt, said: “For decades, cities have been built for cars, not people. That has led to unsustainable traffic, pollution and loss of public space to parking places. We think this approach is outdated. Over the past eight years, we have developed products that offer better and more affordable alternatives for almost every purpose a private car serves. We’re partnering with cities to help people make the switch towards light vehicles such as scooters and e-bikes and shared mobility options like ride-hailing and car-sharing to transform urban areas back into sustainable, people-friendly spaces.”
All Bolt rides in Europe are 100% carbon-neutral as part of Bolt’s Green Plan, a long-term commitment to reduce the ecological footprint of the company.
Bolt Market, one of the company’s newest products, was developed and launched during the pandemic and already operates dozens of stores in ten countries across Europe. In August 2021, the team picked up €600 million to expand this service.
With this new investment Bolt will accelerate its expansion rapidly in 2022 and plans to have hundreds of stores operational by the end of the year.
