Once profitable, carpooling platform BlaBlaCar secures a $108 million debt line

BlaBlaCar is an iconic name within the French startup ecosystem. The carpooling and bus ticketing company has been in the marketplace for thus long that it might probably not be considered a startup. Still, BlaBlaCar is an especially interesting company today due to its unique trajectory.

What began as a vibrant online community of hitchhikers was a startup that raised a whole lot of tens of millions and achieved unicorn status. It then expanded its operations to many countries on several continents before scaling back its ambitions and beginning to take into consideration profitability.

Today, the corporate proclaims that it has obtained a secured revolving credit facility in the quantity of €100 million ($108 million at today’s exchange rates). This will provide it with a latest war chest with which to plan for the longer term and proceed to grow, including through acquisitions.

“Debt is a tool that is relatively attractive, non-dilutive and at the same time very flexible,” Brusson told us. The €100 million credit line is obtainable to several large banks in France, the UK and the US

BlaBlaCar doesn’t pay interest for now since it has not yet used the debt limit. Brusson, nonetheless, said he plans to make use of the debt facility to amass smaller corporations. As many startups struggle to boost one other round of funding, BlaBlaCar will have the ability to step in and acquire these smaller corporations.

Profit from the last 24 months

Although BlaBlaCar isn’t a public company, it’s slowly accepting that it could share some data publicly. In this manner, BlaBlaCar can reveal for the primary time that it has achieved profitability – in actual fact, it has been profitable since April 2022.

This milestone must come as a huge relief, as 2023 has been a difficult 12 months for French startups – aside from working on AI-based products, after all.

“The whole business is profitable. We have been profitable for almost two years,” co-founder and CEO Nicolas Brusson told TechCrunch. “2022 was the primary almost full 12 months after Covid-19, except possibly the primary two months. We recorded revenues of EUR 195 million. We ended the 12 months mainly within the red, but that was often because the primary quarter was terrible.

“But starting in the second quarter of 2022 and beyond, we were profitable. Then in 2023 our revenues increased to over 250 million euros. So we’re seeing a little less than 30% revenue growth and yet we’re still profitable.”

Profitability can mean various things to different people. Many corporations like to say that they’re profitable although they speak about it EBITDA — a financial measure that doesn’t keep in mind the prices related to a company’s assets. And Brusson is a bit fed up with corporations pretending to be profitable but actually losing money yearly.

In the case of BlaBlaCar, the corporate was profitable on an EBITDA basis, however it also generates a net profit when the whole lot is taken under consideration – BlaBlaCar doesn’t own passenger cars or buses anyway.

In 2023, 80 million passengers booked a bus or ride with BlaBlaCar. The excellent news is that BlaBlaCar users are all around the world – not only in France.

“Brazil is larger than France in terms of number of users. “I think India will be bigger than France in terms of ridesharing next year,” Brusson said.

The company has not yet began monetizing its users in India, Brazil, Mexico or Turkey – it doesn’t apply any cuts to travel-sharing transactions. It will regularly add booking fees, which will even help increase the corporate’s revenue.

One wrinkle is Russia. When the war in Ukraine broke out, BlaBlaCar had tens of millions of users in Russia. Although many technology corporations have decided to sell their Russian subsidiaries, BlaBlaCar’s Russian business has been completely separated from the remainder of the business, but BlaBlaCar has no plans to sell it. Brusson argues that this might be counterproductive because it will essentially mean handing it over to its Russian owner.

“Today it is less than 5% of revenue, so it is quite small. It is still part of the group but is completely isolated and independently managed… The company is completely separate from the group. But if you want to sell it, in the current context, it’s like giving it away.”

Adding train tickets

In Europe, BlaBlaCar desires to aggregate all ground transportation methods. In addition to rideshare and bus rides, the corporate plans so as to add train tickets. Users will have the ability to buy tickets sometime next 12 months.

– Our idea is to mix it with carpooling. So we are going to have the ability to supply train travel and shared travel – almost door to door,” Brusson said.

Even in case you don’t book one other BlaBlaCar train ride, the corporate can also be experimenting with last-mile carpooling. “Then we now have one other model for barely shorter distances. The idea is to attach train stations to your destination. Typically, in case you arrive at Vannes Station, you frequently must get to Grandma’s house, holiday home or weekend getaway. You still have 10 to 40 km to go,” he noted.

Since many BlaBlaCar users are already traveling on this direction, the corporate will ping these drivers to see in the event that they can pick up a group of individuals from the train station and drop them off at their destination.

In non-European markets, the largest opportunity is bus travel. “The good news for us in these markets is that the bus industry remains a very fragmented and inactive industry,” Brusson said. He emphasized that in India and Brazil, people spend billions of dollars on bus tickets, which once more suggests that BlaBlaCar has a likelihood to grow.