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Investment
October 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 10
French carpooling giant BlaBlaCar to acquire bus ticketing platform Busfor
BlaBlaCar, the carpooling giant born in France, aims to expand on a new market segment with the acquisition of international bus ticketing platform Busfor.
The deal, which is still subject to regulatory approval, could be completed in Q4 2019. The terms of the agreement are not disclosed, but Kommersant heard from unnamed industry insiders that a no-money transaction is not ruled out, with Busfor’s shareholders receiving a stake in the French unicorn, according to BlaBlaCar’s CEO Nicolas Bruisson and Busfor co-founder Ilya Yekushevsky, as cited by Kommersant.
One of these sources believes that Busfor’s options were limited due to the small amount of cash remaining in the company’s coffers, in spite of the $8.5mn injected by its shareholder Vostok New Ventures (VNV) in 2018. As of the second quarter of this year Busfor was valued at $69.95mn, according to the financial report of the Swedish investment firm, as reported by Kommersant.
If confirmed, the deal will mark an important step towards the consolidation and digitization bus ticketing market in Russia and other countries where both BlaBlaCar and Busfor will jointly operate.
BlaBlaCar entered the Russian and Ukrainian markets in 2014 through the acquisition of Ukrainian site Podorozhniki. Activity in Russia quickly reached a “phenomenal level,” as stated by Bruisson in a past interview – to such an extent that BlaBlaCar, in addition to asserting itself as the market leader in Russia, saw this country become its largest market, even before France.
BlaBlaCar asserted its leadership even more strongly last year with the acquisition of BeepCar, a competing carpooling service run by Mail.Ru Group. In early 2019 BlaBlaCar began publishing bus ride offers on its Russian platform.
BlaBlaCar claims to have invested more than $10mn to develop its service in Russia, which is used today by “over 20mn members” with “more than 100,000 daily rides.”
BlaBlaCar has two shareholders in common with Busfor: Baring Vostok, the famous US-
led Russian private equity firm, which invested €21.3mn in the company in 2016, and VNV, which could see its stake in BlaBlaCar increase as
a result of the acquisition of Busfor.
Launched in Ukraine in 2010, Busfor — previously known as Gillbus — is now headquartered in Poland. It operates in a Belarus, Russia, Ukraine; in a range of EU countries including Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, Italy and Poland; as well as in Thailand and other emerging countries.
The company claims to partner with more 700 bus transport companies, and hopes to sell more than 10mn tickets in 2019. According to Yekushevsky, the number of sold tickets more than tripled in 2018.
The average ticket price amounts to $22, with Busfor getting a 15% fee on each sale, reported Kommersant last year, citing company data.
The bus transportation market in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union amounts to some