By Nathan Guma
ESTONIAN ride-hailing company, Bolt, has recorded €2 billion (US$2.086bn) annual revenue in the 2024 financial year, as the company continues to make strides in the mobility business since its founding a decade ago.
Bolt, with over 4.5 million users, has operations in over 50 countries and 600 cities across the globe and provides shared mobility services including ride-hailing, scooter and e-bike rental and car rental to over 200 million lifetime customers.
The company founded in 2013 by technopreneur Markus Villig, has been accelerating the transition from owned cars to shared mobility, while providing products that include ride-hailing, scooter and car rental services, food and grocery delivery and corporate mobility services.
Bolt has been operating in Zimbabwe since January 2024, making it the third country in Southern Africa to receive the service after South Africa and Zambia.
The company has been bullish on the international market, reaching US$2bn in annual revenue in 2024.
“Bolt’s Founder and CEO, Markus Villig, announced that the company has achieved €2 billion in annual revenue. This is a significant milestone for a company that started with a €5,000 loan from Villig’s parents just 11 years ago,” reads the statement by Mahlodi Molekane public relations manager for South Africa.
The new milestone builds upon humble beginnings on which the company was founded, with Villig building the company from a €5000 loan he received from his parents in 2013.
During this early period, Markus bootstrapped the business, scaling Bolt out of its home market of Estonia with a small team and the initial loan from his parents.
Today, Bolt has expanded its offering to five products including ride-hailing, scooter and e-bike rental, food and grocery delivery, and car-sharing. Today Bolt is present in more than 50 countries and is the number one operator in more than 20 of them.
Villig has attributed Bolt’s success over the years to the availability of tech talent in Europe.
“I don’t really agree that you cannot figure out how to do world-class marketing or engineering from Europe,” Villig said.
“In our experience, what has worked significantly better [than hiring from the US] is taking people from Europe who are really talented and hard-working but have just never had the opportunity to compete on the world stage before.
“Those are the people that built the company and have grown with it – it’s a completely different mentality to hiring people in Silicon Valley who might move on to the next thing two years later.”
Villig said autonomous vehicles (AV) platforms will be an important strategic priority for the business. He said that platforms like Bolt will be crucial for deploying AV technology at scale.
“Ride-hailing companies are going to be the best way for self-driving cars to come to market. Some people think that these companies will build their own operations and companies like ours will get squeezed out of the market,” he said.
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