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Bolt Raises $709M At An $8.4B Valuation To Expand Its Transportation And Food Delivery Super App

Jan 11, 2022•over 3 years ago

Amount Raised

$709 Million

Tallinn

Description

Economies of scale are an essential cornerstone for on-demand companies, and to that end one of the hopefuls in the space has raised a big round to grow its 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 €628 million ($709 million at current rates), at a valuation of €7.4 billion ($8.4 billion). It will be using the funds to continue expanding to new geographies and to bring more consumers and partners to its “super app”; and newer business lines, such as its 15-minute grocery delivery option Bolt Market, will be building out ‘dark stores’ in more cities to expand the service beyond the 10 where its active today.

Company Information

Company

Bolt

Location

Tallinn, Harju Maakond, Estonia

About

As a measure of its growth, in August, when the company announced that previous round, it had 75 million customers. Bolt now has more than 100 million customers in 45 countries and 400+ cities using its services. Bolt was founded eight years ago in Tallinn, Estonia (originally as Taxify), with a mission to bring ride hailing to emerging markets and countries where others like Uber had yet to gain a strong foothold, a strategy that it used to expand modestly across regions like Central and Eastern Europe and Africa, in the process attracting investors like China’s Didi — itself having built a massive business in its own home emerging market. (Didi quietly divested its stake in Bolt last year.)Over time, the focus has remained on Europe and Africa, but Bolt found that a lot of its learnings from those first launches could just as easily be applied in more developed countries, with more lucrative payoffs. “We started off in Eastern Europe and Africa because those markets had a bigger need.

Funding Insights

Based on industry data
Tech investment trends
83% of B2B companies plan digital investments, with 79% prioritizing customer experience tech