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BlaBlaCaris an iconic name in the French startup ecosystem . The carpooling and bus ticketing fellowship has been around for so long that it ’s hard to conceive it a startup anymore . Still , BlaBlaCar is an extremely interesting troupe today due to its alone flight .
What started as ascrappy online hitchhiking communitybecame a startup that conjure up century of jillion and reach unicorn status . It then expanded to many state across several Continent , thenscaled backits ambitions and started tothink about profitability .
Today , the fellowship is announcing that it ’s secure a € 100 million revolving credit facility ( $ 108 million at today ’s interchange rate ) . This will give it a new warfare chest to contrive for the futurity and keep driving for growth — let in through acquisition .
“ Debt is a tool that ’s comparatively attractive , non - dilutive , and extremely flexible too , ” atomic number 27 - founding father and CEO Nicolas Brusson told TechCrunch . The € 100 million credit argument is with several big Sir Joseph Banks based in France , the U.K. and the U.S.
BlaBlaCar is n’t paying any interest for now , as it has not tapped its debt line yet . But Brusson said he plan to use that debt readiness to take smaller companies . As many startup are struggling because they ca n’t raise their next support round , BlaBlaCar will be able to step in and acquire these lowly companies .
Profitable for the past 24 months
While BlaBlaCar is n’t a public fellowship , it is slowly accepting the fact that it can share some metric more publically . This way , BlaBlaCar can reveal for the first sentence that it has reached profitableness — in fact , it has been profitable since April 2022 .
The milepost must descend as a huge assuagement as 2023 has beena challenging yearfor French startup — except if you work on artificial intelligence products , of course .
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“ The whole business is profitable . We ’ve been profitable for almost two years , ” Brusson tell us . “ [ In ] 2022 , [ which ] was the first almost full class post - COVID , except for possibly the first two month , we recorded € 195 million in revenue . And we terminate up basically slenderly negative for the year , but that was really because Q1 was horrible . ”
“ But from Q2 2022 and forwards , we ’ve been profitable . Then , in 2023 , our tax revenue stand out to over € 250 million . So we ’re experiencing a little bit less than 30 % in top - line of reasoning growth and we ’re still profitable . ”
Profitable can mean different affair to different hoi polloi . Many companies like to arrogate they ’re profitable even though they ’re talking aboutEBITDA — a fiscal system of measurement that does n’t take into consideration the toll associated with a party ’s plus . And Brusson is a act feed up with company pretending to be profitable and that are in reality losing money every yr .
In BlaBlaCar ’s case , the company has been profitable on an Earnings Before Interest Taxes Depreciation and Amortization basis , but also generates nett profits when you take everything into account — BlaBlaCar does n’t own any cars or buses anyway .
In 2023 , 80 million passengers booked a bus or carpool ride on BlaBlaCar . And the serious news is that there are BlaBlaCar user all around the world — not just France .
“ Brazil is big than France in terms of the number of drug user . And I think that India will be bigger than France for the numeral of carpool rides next year , ” Brusson said .
The company has n’t started monetize its user in India , Brazil , Mexico or Turkey yet — it does n’t take any cut on carpooling transactions . It will progressively impart booking fees , which will also help when it comes to grow the company ’s tax revenue .
One wrinkle is Russia . When the warfare in Ukraine started , BlaBlaCar had millions of users in Russia . While many tech companies decided to sell their Russian subsidiary , BlaBlaCar ’s Russian natural process have been completely segregate from the balance of the business organisation but BlaBlaCar does n’t plan to sell it . Brusson argue this would be counterproductive , as it would essentially mean giving it away to a Russia - based owner .
“ Today , it stand for just under 5 % of revenue , so it ’s pretty small . It ’s still part of the chemical group , but it ’s completely isolated and make out independently . … The ship’s company is entirely carved out from the group . But if you want to sell it , in the current linguistic context , it ’s like giving it out . ”
Adding train tickets
In Europe , BlaBlaCar wants to aggregate all ground transportation system method . In addition to carpooling and bus ride , the caller project to tote up power train ticket . Users will be able to buy tickets at some decimal point in the next twelvemonth or so .
“ The idea for us is to combine it with carpooling . So we ’ll be able to bid journeys with gearing plus carpooling — almost threshold - to - door , ” Brusson said .
Even if you do n’t hold your next train ride on BlaBlaCar , the company is also try out with last - naut mi carpooling . “ In that case , we have a different model for slightly shorter distances . The idea is to link up train Stations of the Cross with your name and address . Typically , if you go far at Vannes station , you often need to get to your grandmother ’s house , your vacation home , your weekend getaway . You still have between 10 kilometre and 40 km to go , ” he noted .
As there are already many BlaBlaCar drug user who are drive in that counseling , the company will ping those number one wood to see if they can pick up a group of masses at the train station and devolve them off at their address .
In non - European markets , bus rides represent the fully grown chance . “ The good newsworthiness for us in these food market is that bus rest a very offline and disconnected industriousness , ” Brusson said . He luff out that the great unwashed spend billions of dollars on busbar tickets in India and Brazil — suggesting that , once again , there ’s room for BlaBlaCar to arise .
