Bolt (company)

Bolt is an Estonian mobility company that offers ride-hailing, micromobility rental, food and grocery delivery (via the Bolt Food app), and carsharing services. The company is headquartered in Tallinn and operates in over 500 cities in more than 45 countries in Europe, Africa, Western Asia and Latin America. The company has more than 150 million customers and more than 3 million driver and courier partners. The company has plans for an initial public offering in 2025.

History
The company was founded in 2013 as Taxify by Markus Villig, then a 19 year-old high-school student. Markus built the prototype of the app while recruiting drivers personally on the streets of Tallinn after receiving a €5000 loan from his family.

The service was launched in Tallinn, Estonia in August 2013 and by 2014 it was operating abroad. In April 2017, it expanded to Baku and Malta. In September 2017, Bolt launched its services in London by acquiring a local taxi company with a licence to operate, but was forced by Transport for London to shut down its services. In February 2018, the company filed a new licence application and relaunched in London in June 2019. In October 2017, it expanded to Paris. In April 2018, it reached 10 million global users. In March 2019, the company changed its name from Taxify to Bolt. In August 2019, the company launched Bolt Food, a food delivery service in Tallinn. It has since expanded to over 80 cities across 20 countries with over 30,000 restaurants using the platform. In September 2021, Bolt launched a grocery delivery service, Bolt Market.

Financing
Prior to announcing a partnership with Didi Chuxing, Bolt had raised over €2 million in investment capital from Estonian and Finnish angel investors. In August 2017, Didi Chuxing invested an undisclosed amount believed to be an "eight-figure U.S. dollar sum". A May 2018 funding round with a $175 million investment from Daimler, Didi and others led to a 1 billion dollar valuation for the company, making it a unicorn.

In January 2020, the European Investment Bank signed a EUR 50 million venture debt facility with Bolt. The financing, supported by the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), is to boost Bolt's product development in areas where technology can improve the safety, reliability and sustainability of its services. This includes investment in existing services such as vehicle for hire and food delivery, as well as the development of new products.

In December 2020, Bolt raised €150 million from venture capital investment funds. In March 2021, Bolt raised €20 million from International Finance Corporation, a World Bank Group member, for further expansion in emerging markets. The company was valued at more than €2 billion after this fund raising round. In August 2021, Bolt raised €600 million from Sequoia Capital increasing the valuation of the company to over €4 billion. As of 2021, Didi Chuxing was no longer an investor in Bolt. In January 2022, Bolt raised €628 million from investors led by Sequoia Capital and Fidelity Management and Research Co, taking the company's valuation to €7.4 billion.

Bolt e-scooters
In September 2018, the company announced it was expanding into micromobility services. After launching scooters in Paris, Bolt expanded its micromobility operations across Europe. In November 2022, Bolt scooters were integrated into the Norwegian MaaS application, Ruter, and in May 2023 — into Berlin’s mobility app, Jelbi. As of February 2023, Bolt has operations in 260 cities across 25 countries and 245,000 shared vehicles available for rental. In June 2023, Bolt introduced their new scooter model — Bolt 6.

Bolt e-bikes
Two years after launching e-scooters, in May 2020, Bolt launched e-bikes in Paris, France. And in the following years expanded its e-bike operations across many major European cities.

Bolt Drive
In May 2021, Bolt launched a car-sharing service, Bolt Drive. Bolt Drive launched in Tallinn, Estonia, and has since expanded to four more countries — Latvia, Lithuania, and Germany In May 2023, Bolt entered into leasing framework agreements for a total of €126m with Luminor and Swedbank to enable the expansion of Bolt Drive in the Baltic countries. It had 1,500 car-sharing vehicles in Vilnius 18 months after launch. Bolt's car-sharing service in Vilnius costs from 0.05 euros per minute for Audi Q2 and Peugeot 208.

Self-driving cars
In August 2019, Bolt and the University of Tartu announced a partnership on an applied research project to develop technology for self-driving cars. In April 2021, Bolt and the University of Tartu expanded their cooperation on the AV project, signing a new 5-year agreement designed to further develop the technical capabilities of the university's autonomous driving lab in the areas of artificial intelligence and maps and algorithms.

Grocery delivery service
In 2021, Bolt launched grocery delivery service in the Baltic States. It later expanded to Sweden, Czech Republic, Poland and elsewhere. Bolt plans to eventually deliver groceries with self-driving robots, in partnership with Starship Technologies.