BlaBlaCar announced today that it has secured a €100 million revolving credit facility to fuel its growth ambitions. This brings the company's funding to over €637 million.
BlaBlaCar is the world’s leading community-based travel app, enabling 27 million active members a year to share a ride in 21 countries. Its technology matches drivers with empty seats with passengers heading the same way, so they can share the cost of the trip.
BlaBlaCar also combines carpooling with bus journeys from over 5,000 operators to offer a wide choice of affordable and sustainable travel solutions, all in one app.
The company reached profitability over the last 24 months. This heralds a new phase of profitable growth for BlaBlaCar, which is consolidating its multimodal strategy and reducing travel's carbon footprint by 2 million tonnes of CO2 in 2023.
According to Nicolas Brusson, co-founder and CEO of BlaBlaCar:
“This €100 million financing will enable us to pursue an ambitious growth strategy, including M&A, where we currently explore several opportunities. Combined with continuous innovation, M&A is a tool to help us achieve market leadership faster.”
This model has already been implemented in France, with the acquisition of Ouibus in 2019, leading to the establishment of the BlaBlaCar Bus network across Western Europe.
In parallel, in Eastern Europe and Brazil, the acquisition of Busfor and the development of its own bus marketplace enabled BlaBlaCar to lead the offline-to-online transition of the bus industry.
A record performance in 2023, achieving +29% growth in revenues and reaching profitability
This financing follows a strong 2023 for the company. In 2023, 80 million passengers booked a bus or carpool ride on BlaBlaCar, an increase of 23 per cent compared to 2022.
The growth is particularly pronounced in emerging markets such as India and Brazil — the latter has become BlaBlaCar's leading country for its carpooling activity in 2023.
BlaBlaCar recorded €253 million in revenue—a +29% increase from the previous year. For the first time, the company has achieved profitability for 24 months and has closed the 2023 exercise with positive EBITDA, initiating a new phase of profitable growth.
Public authorities are also developing a range of mechanisms to support the adoption of shared mobility: from a dedicated carpooling plan in France to energy savings certificates in Spain.
“With these measures, governments are recognizing that carpooling is an effective, targeted and immediate solution to our current and future challenges."
"It is clearer than ever that to limit spending, reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and reduce our carbon footprint, our travel habits must change.
Shared mobility is part of the solution: BlaBlaCar has and will continue to bring this vision to everyone, individuals, companies, governments, and other stakeholders in the transition towards more sustainable and inclusive mobility,” concludes Nicolas Brusson.
Lead image, BlaBlaCar. Photo: uncredited.
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