The from Daimler-Group-supported mobility provider Bolt announces an electric scooter offensive. The start-up from Estonia will invest more than 100 million euros in 2021 to become the largest e-scooter rental company in Europe. The rival of Uber and the Berlin start-up Tier Mobility said it wanted to bring 130,000 scooters to more than 100 cities in the next year and thus expand aggressively across the continent. “There is so much room for growth,” said Markus Villig (26), the young CEO and co-founder, in an interview with Reuters.
Bolt already describes itself as Europe’s “leading mobility platform”. The company started in 2013 as an Uber competitor under the name Taxify and offers ride-hailing in particular. In the course of the Corona crisis, this business collapsed by 80 percent and has still not achieved its old strength. However, Villig does not want to understand his offensive as a pure crisis reaction.
After the boom in electric scooters in early 2019 the supposed future business seemed nothing more than hype of some investors. Particularly aggressive US providers like Bird or a unit of Uber withdrew from the competitive European market. The other providers are now trying to fill this gap. The Berlin start-up Tier announced at the beginning of the week, a whopping 250 million dollars from backers around the controversial tech investor Softbank to have collected in order to expand the business (currently: 60,000 scooters in 80 cities).
Bolt entered the electric rental scooter and bike business in 2018. They are now awarded in 45 cities, mainly in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. In Germany Bolt is not yet active. As part of the expansion, the company now wants to Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, Spain and the Switzerland start. However, the wild days in which suppliers could simply distribute their scooters across the streets like a guerrilla are over. Paris, for example – one of the most interesting markets in Europe – has only issued licenses to three providers this year (Bolt is not included) The UK has strict regulations.
“In most cities,” Bolt could already operate his e-scooters profitably, the company said when asked by manager magazin. And founder Villig says: Bolt benefits from its established ride-hailing business when it competes with e-scooter companies like Tier, as it can address over 30 million users directly and benefit from cost synergies in marketing and sales. Effects that have not gone unnoticed by other providers: animal scooters are integrated into the Sixt car rental app.
In May, Bolt raised € 100 million from investment firm Naya Capital Management through a loan that can be converted into shares. The company is valued at 1.7 billion euros – about twice as high as Tier. In 2018, the Daimler Group and the Chinese supplier Didi Chuxing also came on board as investors; Daimler even led the then financing round of 175 million dollars.