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By Yashasvini Razdan, 4:22 PM ET
European ride-hailing firm, Bolt, has raised its valuation to $4.75 billion in its latest funding round, backed by venture capital firm Sequoia and fund managers Tekne and Ghisallo. Existing investors G Squared, D1 Capital, and Naya also increased their holdings after the round.
Aspiring to establish its roots in the online grocery industry, Bolt raised $712.32 million in fresh funding, pushing its valuation to more than double its last private valuation.
CNBC reported that Bolt CEO and founder Markus Villig said, “A year ago, we ran into the biggest crisis the company had seen. We dropped over 80% as all the cities went into lockdown and ride-hailing was still the core business.”
Villig described that the situation had gradually improved since the start of the pandemic. As countries emerge from lockdowns and reopen economies, Bolt has rapidly grown and acquired more than 75 million users in 45 countries across Europe and Africa.
Europe has an extremely competitive sector for grocery delivery. Many on-demand shopping apps are being funded by billion-dollar venture capitals are emerging. Turkey’s Getir raised its valuation to $7.5 billion in June.
Bolt, which originally started as Taxify, a taxi-hailing app in Estonia has expanded into different sectors including food delivery, car sharing, and electric scooter, and bike rentals.
A challenge faced by the ride-hailing giant is the supreme court ruling that Uber drivers should be treated as workers entitled to benefits like a minimum wage and holiday pay.
Following this, Uber reclassified 70,000 drivers as workers instead of referring to them as independent contractors, setting an example for other ride-hailing services such as Bolt, Ola and Free Now, sharing a similar business model.
Bolt has no plans to follow suit and maintained that its business model was very different from Uber’s model. Villig told CNBC that the company was deliberating over the issue with the drivers and regulators. “What we want to provide and what most of these drivers and couriers value the most are independence and freedom. We see the best way to cater to that is to have the best independent contractor model in the world,” he said.
Bolt launched a car-sharing service in Europe, earlier in May, as part of its strategy to diversify its revenue streams. The company said it would spend $24 million to launch Bolt Drive in Europe this year, beginning with a pilot in Tallinn, Estonia, where it is headquartered.
With inputs from CNBC
Picture Credits: Innovation Village