One of the big finance themes of 2021 was the huge amount of money poured into tech companies by the venture capital sector – and, to judge from fund-raisings already this year, 2022 looks like being no different.
Today brought one of the most eye-catching fund-raisings in recent months with news that Bolt, the Estonian business that describes itself as “Europe’s leading mobility platform and first super-app”, has raised €628m (£524m).
The funding round, backed by investors including Silicon Valley-based venture capital hotshots Sequoia Capital and the asset management giant Fidelity, values Bolt at €7.4bn (£6.2bn).
It comes barely five months after Bolt’s last funding round was completed which, at the time, valued it at €4bn (£3.3bn).
In other words, in just 135 days, Bolt’s worth has increased by €3.4bn (£2.8bn) – or just under €25.2m (£21m) every day.
Not bad for a business that was founded only nine years ago with a budget of just €5,000 (£4,200) by a man, Markus Villig, who at the time was just 19 years old and still in high school.
Mr Villig said today that the funding would be used to accelerate Bolt’s mission of reducing private car ownership and help build a future in which cities have less congestion, less pollution and more green spaces.
He told Sky News: “What we see across Europe today is that cities want to move away from private car ownership onto shared mobility and into using light electric vehicles, especially bikes, scooters and mopeds, and Bolt is really leading that transition.
“That is what this funding round is now symbolising.”
Mr Villig founded his company in the first instance because his local taxi service was so poor
Mr Villig said that the capital raised in the funding round would be used to expand all…
Source : skynews
