Bolt Technology, the Estonia-based ride hailing service backed by peer Didi Chuxing and automotive manufacturer Daimler, has secured €100m ($109.7m) from asset manager Naya Capital Management, Bloomberg reported yesterday, citing an emailed statement.
The capital was raised at a valuation of almost $1.9bn and it lifted Bolt’s funding to more than $350m since it was founded in 2013.
Formerly known as Taxify, Bolt runs an on-demand ride service with more than 30 million registered users across more than 35 countries. Its key regions are Europe and Africa, though it has expanded to locations such as Australia, Iraq and Mexico.
The company also runs e-scooter rental and food delivery services and recently launched a courier business.
Markus Villig, Bolt’s co-founder and CEO, told Bloomberg: “Our goal is to be the biggest company in all our markets by orders and volumes after the crisis. (US-based peer) Uber clearly is focusing on its home markets, which are the US and Latin America…We have a good opportunity to emerge even stronger in Europe and in Africa in the next 12 months.”
Naya Capital joined Activant Capital, Tribe Capital, Nordic Ninjas, Creandum, Invenfin, Superangel and G Squared to provide a reported $67m of series C funding for Bolt in July 2019 at a valuation in excess of $1bn. The European Union-sponsored European Fund for Strategic Investments then supplied $55.7m of venture debt in January 2020.
Daimler led the company’s $175m series B round in mid-2018, investing alongside Didi Chuxing, Korelya Capital and Taavet Hinrikus, following an undisclosed amount from Didi the year before.
Bolt had previously received $2.4m in funding, with $1.7m coming from advertising technology provider Adcash, Rubylight and TMT Investments in 2014. Spring Capital is reportedly also among its earlier backers.
