Bolt on Eesti päriolu ning sõidujagamisteenusest välja kasvanud mobiilsusplatvorm, mis võimaldab inimestel sõita autoga, kasutada elektrirattaid, tarnida toitu, pakke jmt. Bolt opereerib hetkel rohkem kui sajas (100) linnas ja kolmekümnes (30) riigis, kuid on pidevalt laienemas.
Driver app:
Rider app:
Hiljuti läks börsile Bolti konkurent Lyft (loe börsile mineku prospekti siin) mis kaasas $2.4 bn USD ja üsna pea tuleb börsile ka teine peamine konkurent Uber kes plaanib kaasata ca $10 bn USD.
New York Timesile antud intervjuus teatab ettevõtte asutaja Markus Villig, et lähema viie aasta jooksul läheb ka Bolt börsile:
The company struggled until business in Africa began to grow. The continent now makes up about half of Bolt’s business. Today, Bolt operates in more than 100 cities and 30 countries. It opened in Sweden, Croatia and Finland in the past six months, and will soon be available in Russia. More than 25 million passengers have used Bolt to take a ride since it was rolled out.
Mr. Villig said raising money for Bolt had been difficult: He pulled together less than $5 million over the company’s first five years, while Uber has raised more than $24 billion. Then last year, investors including the carmaker Daimler and China’s Didi put $175 million into Bolt. It is now working on a new round of funding.
Bolt’s long-term success is far from assured. Like Uber and Lyft, it loses money. For every $10 it makes in fares, Bolt loses about $1 because of the cost of expanding to new markets and offering incentives to riders and drivers, Mr. Villig said.
But that is less than Uber and Lyft, he added. He said Bolt was on a pace to have more than $1 billion in total bookings this year and could break even if it slowed down its expansion plans. He hopes to take the company public in three to five years.
Bolt also is more frugal than Uber, Mr. Villig said. The company spends about half as much on an engineer who works in its offices in Estonia and Romania than it would in California, he calculated. The company also saves money by forgoing a large research department. Instead, it posts Facebook ads for drivers to help it decide which cities to open in. Bolt focuses on areas that get big responses.
The company keeps most support operations centralized in Estonia and hires just three to five employees in each country it operates. And Mr. Villig said he had no interest in spending on autonomous vehicles.