The French start-up carpooling and bus trips BlaBlaCar, announced on April 3 that it had obtained new financing of 100 million euros, in a credit facility. A sum that will allow it to expand internationally, with an emphasis on acquisitions. “This financing will allow us to accelerate our growth, while we are currently exploring several acquisition opportunities, explains Nicolas Brusson, co-founder and CEO of BlaBlaCar. In parallel with our investments in innovation, our acquisition strategy contributes to the faster deployment of our multimodal offer.”
253 million euros in turnover in 2023
BlaBlaCar did not specify which acquisitions it wished to focus on, nor the targeted areas, simply mentioning a potential “outside Europe”. In recent years, however, the French unicorn has increased its merger and acquisition operations. In 2018, when it announced a fundraising of 100 million euros, BlaBlaCar bought the Ouibus subsidiary of the SNCF. The following year, it acquired Busfor, one of the leading online bus ticket distributors in Russia and Ukraine. Latest acquisition to date, the operation on Klaxit, last March, specializing in home-work carpooling.
The unicorn, which will celebrate its 18th anniversary this year and has 800 employees, indicates that it has entered “in a phase of profitable growth”. Last year, it achieved 253 million euros in turnover, up 29% compared to 2022, and almost double that achieved in 2019 (130 million euros). BlaBlaCar also indicated that it has been profitable for 24 consecutive months, and ended the year with positive EBITDA. She specifies that this financial solidity results “the progressive monetization of carpooling in new countries and the restructuring of the bus activity in Western Europe”.
Brazil, leading country for carpooling
According to the start-up, valued in December at 2 billion euros, 80 million people boarded carpooling cars or its buses last year, a figure up 23% compared to 2022. It observes particularly marked growth in emerging markets such asIndia where the Brazilwhich became the first country on carpooling for the company.
BlaBlaCar obtained this credit facility financing from major banks such as Société Générale, BNP Paribas, Citibank, JP Morgan or HSBC. A facility allowing the start-up to make purchases in cash, instead of exchanging securities.