Estonian-based Bolt is aiming to reach profitability in the next 12 months as the mobility giant pinpoints 2025 as the year it expects to go public.
The firm was valued at €7.4bn when it raised €628m from investors in January 2022.
This comes as Bolt appoints Revolut’s ex-CFO Mikko Salovaara as its new finance chief and it surpasses the 150-million customer milestone on its 10-year anniversary.
Its suite of mobility products include ridehailing, micromobility (scooter and e-bike rental), food delivery, grocery delivery, Bolt Drive, a free-floating car-sharing service, and Bolt Business, a corporate mobility service.
Bolt’s micromobility customers now total more than 12 million with its services spread across more than 260 cities in 25 countries in Europe.
Drilling down on Sligo
After entering the Irish market in the summer of 2022 with a bikesharing service in Sligo, Bolt has seen some of the highest utilisation rates of its e-bikes of any market it operates in worldwide.
So far there have been 76,296 trips with 153,741 kilometres travelled.
We interviewed Bolt’s Head of Operations for Ireland, John Buckley as part of our Market Movers series last year to see how he was generating such growth.
Today, Buckley tells Zag Daily: “Naturally, traction with the service is particularly high around public transport hubs but our approach isn’t to simply deploy and forget. We’re constantly analysing data not only to assess which locations are – or could be – helpful, but also whether the amount of bikes deployed is relative to the level of demand. Consequently, we’ve created a frictionless, comprehensive network that fits seamlessly into the lives of riders and pedestrians alike.”
Besides Sligo, Bolt also operates bikeshare schemes in Kilkenny, Wexford and Bray.
Bolt was founded by 19-year-old Markus Villig in Tallinn, Estonia in 2013.
