BlaBlaCar, a French-founded carpooling platform, has announced its plans to move beyond ridesharing towards becoming a road travel platform. The company has offered to acquire the bus operator Ouibus from SNCF, the French national railway company. At the same time, BlaBlaCar announced a €101 million funding round from SNCF itself with participation from existing investors.
Back in April, BlaBlaCar already teamed up with Ouibus to cross-share travel offerings on the two platforms during an SNCF strike. Now the scale-up wants to run the entire service that connects 300 cities across Europe. After the acquisition of Ouibus, BlaBlaCar also plans to open up its platform to other local bus operators.
“We are excited to consider joining forces with the Ouibus team to enable travellers to find diverse mobility solutions on BlaBlaCar that suit their range of needs,” said Nicolas Brusson, co-Founder and CEO of BlaBlaCar. “This project supports our ambition to grow a broad mobility offer across Europe, combining cars and buses. The collaboration with SNCF would also be a promising turning point in the development of intermodal and door-to-door mobility, a common ambition which we are uniquely positioned to deliver together.”
Founded in 2006, BlaBlaCar is currently active in 22 countries and has 65 million users. The company has raised more than €400 million in funding, including the current round.
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