Last time I spoke with and interviewed BlaBlaCar COO Nicolas Brusson, the company he co-founded roughly 10 years ago was thriving and starting to gain quite a bit of buzz in Europe. BlaBlaCar had attracted over 6 million members, 1 million of which were actively using its ride-sharing booking service every month. That was about half a year ago.
Last week, BlaBlaCar announced that it now has 10 million users (and more than 2 million active members) across Europe and Russia - as it kickstarted operations in Turkey. Oh, and the company raised $100 million in a single round of funding in the meantime, too.
More than enough reasons to catch up with Brusson a second time, which I did in Istanbul last week.
Brusson told me about BlaBlaCar's rapid growth in Russia, where it estimates it will have 1 million members by the end of the year, why Turkey was next on the roadmap and which markets will follow in its footsteps (spoiler: Brazil and India). We also discussed the massive financing round BlaBlaCar announced in July, and the French company's overall expansion strategy.
My apologies for the poor sound quality of the video interview. tech.eu intends to invest in the acquisition of a revolutionary device called an external 'microphone' soon.
Featured image credit: Natalie Ortiz / Flickr
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