Technology
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.
Technology
The time of the American semiconductor market in 2025.

It was already a turbulent yr for the American semiconductor industry.
The semiconductor industry plays a major role in the “AI race”, which the US appears to be determined, so it’s value being attentive to this: from the appointment of Lip-Bu Tan-which has not waste time to work, attempting to revitalize the Heritage Company-Joe Biden proposing latest rules of exports AI AI along the way that would not or can follow.
Here’s what happened since the starting of the yr.
Power
Last reversal
May 7: Just every week before the “Frame of Artificial Intelligence Diffusion”. According to many media, including Axios AND BloombergThe administration won’t implement restrictions when it was to start out on May 15 and as a substitute works in its own framework.
April
Anthropic doubles the support of chip export restrictions
April 30: Anthropic has doubled because of the limitation of exports of chip systems in the USA, including several corrections to artificial intelligence framework, akin to imposing further restrictions in level 2 and dedication of resources to enforcement. The NVIDIA spokesman rejected, saying: “American companies should focus on innovations and get up to the challenge, instead of telling high stories that large, heavy and sensitive electronics are somehow smuggled in” Baby bugghs “or” next to the lobsters live “.
Planned exemptions at Intel
April 22: Before connecting profits with Q1, Intel said he was planning to release over 21,000 employees. The exemptions were to enhance management, something that the general director of Lip-Bu Tan has long said that Intel must do and help in the reconstruction of the company’s engineering.
The Trump administration further limits the chip export
April 15: The NVIDIA H20 AI chip was hit with the requirement of export license, the company revealed in the SEC application. The company added that it expects for $ 5.5 billion fees related to this latest requirement in the first quarter of the tax yr in 2026. H20 is the most advanced AI Nvidia chip can still export to China in some form or fashion. TSMC and Intel reported similar expenses in the same week.
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NVIDIA seems to talk of further export of chips
April 9: According to reports, the general director of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, was noticed for dinner at the Mar-A-Lago Center in Donald Trump. Then, NPR was reported Huang could have the ability to save lots of AI H20 NVIDIA systems from export restrictions after investing in AI data centers in the USA
Alleged agreement between Intel and TSMC
April 3: Intel and TSMC allegedly reached a preliminary agreement on the commencement of a joint project of Chips. This joint undertaking would work in Intel devices, and TSMC would have 20% shares in the latest undertaking. Both firms refused to comment or confirm. If this contract just isn’t accomplished, this might be a good preview of potential offers in this industry.
Intel rotates from non -corporate assets, proclaims a brand new initiative
April 1: CEO Lip-BU TAN immediately worked. Just just a few weeks after joining the Intel, the company announced that it might rotate resources unrelated to the core in order that it could focus. He also said that the company would introduce latest products, including non -standard semiconductors for purchasers.
March
Intel calls the latest CEO
March 12: Intel announced that a veteran of the industry and a former board member, Lip-Bu Tan will return to the company as general director on March 18. At the time of his appointment, Tan said that Intel could be a “engine -oriented company” under his leadership.
February
Intel’s Ohio Chip Plant is delayed again
February 28: This yr, Intel was to start out running its first chip factory in Ohio. Instead, the company slowed down the construction of the plant for the second time in February. Now the design of semiconductors value $ 28 billion won’t end with the construction until 2030 and might even open only in 2031.
Senators call for more chip export restrictions
February 3: US Senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), wrote a letter to the Secretary for Trade for Howard Lutnicka Calling Trump’s administration for further restriction Export of the AI system. A letter addressed especially to AI H20 NVIDIA systems, which were used during training of the R1 Deepseek “reasoning” model.
January
Deepseek releases its open model “reasoning”
January 27: The Chinese startup Ai Deepseek caused quite mixing in the Silicon Valley when he released the open version of his model “reasoning” R1. Although this just isn’t a special message of semiconductors, the alarm in the AI industry and Deepseek semiconductors meant that it still has an impact on the chip industry.
Order Joe Biden on the export of chip
January 13: Only the incumbent week remained, former President Joe Biden proposed extensive export restrictions on AI systems made by the USA. The order has created a 3 -level structure that determined what number of American systems will be exported to every country. According to this proposal, level 1 countries didn’t face any restrictions; Countries 2 level 2 had a chip purchase limit for the first time; And level 3 countries received additional restrictions.
Dario Amodei from anthropics weighs the limitations of chip exports
January 6: Co -founder of anthropics and general director, Dario Amodei, co -author of opinions The Wall Street Journal Supporting existing control controls of the AI system and indicating them as the reason why the Chinese market of artificial intelligence was in the US. “He also called on the incoming President Donald Trump to impose further restrictions and shutting the gaps that allowed AI to get these tokens in China.
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Technology
One of the long -term VC Elona Muska suits his former employer after alleged dismissal

Josh Raffaella, who has deep roots as an investor of the Silicon Valley and was supported by many firms Elon Musk, suits his former employer, massive trillion dollars Aum Brookfield Asset Management, reports the New York Times.
A major part of Raffaella’s criticism concerns how Brookfield covered losses related to the pandemic of real estate and claims that the company released him after submitting the criticism of informants at SEC. His lawsuit gives allegations akin to fraud and bribe, while Brookfield deny all offenses rapidly, said The Times.
In February, Brookfield quietly closed the Venture Capital unit run by Raffaella and threw some assets on one other unit, Bloomberg reported at the moment. One of Raffaella’s complaints in the lawsuit is that Brookfield didn’t buy so many shares in firms belonging to musk because he provided the possibility of purchase.
Raffaella had shopping transactions in Musk, akin to SpaceX, XAI and a boring company, claims the claim. Bloomberg announced that his Brookfield fund was an awesome supporter of Twitter’s takeover by Musk.
The lawsuit is a really public battle of Raffaella, who previously worked as a partner at VC, known at the time as a drapeer Fisher Jurvetson. (Today it’s a set of funds.) In DFJ Brookfield, it has helped this company spend money on Musk, akin to Solarcity (acquired by Tesla), Spacex and Tesla.
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Technology
The AI X Dream Machine library project is intended to help in underestimated innovators

Through the project of the AI X library, the CNN commentator, activist and entrepreneurs Van Jones and co -chairman of the projects Inayah Bashir and Steven Pargett be sure that the Black and Brown communities have free, practical opportunities to learn the force of artificial intelligence.
Libraries have long been secure for knowledge, access and community. Now they grow to be starts in innovation. Through the CNN commentator, the activist and entrepreneur Van Jones and co -chairing Project Inayah Bashir and Steven Pargett be sure that black and brown communities have free, practical possibilities of learning the strength of artificial intelligence.
Launched by the trio Dream Machine Innovation Lab in cooperation with Google, AI X Library Project already has an impact on cities corresponding to Brooklyn and Atlanta, with plans to extend on Miami, Detroit and Los Angeles.
“We don’t just want to consume technology – we want to create, shape and run it,” said Jones during an interview with Black company. „Myślę, że AI jest potencjalnie najbliższe odszkodowania, jakie kiedykolwiek dostaniemy, ponieważ po raz pierwszy od 400 lat mamy dosłownie równy dostęp i równe szanse na coś transformacyjnego. To, o czym polega nasz projekt, jest wrażliwa na możliwość i upewniając się, że jesteśmy w rozmowie o równym dostępie do dobrej rzeczy. Jeśli chodzi o edukację, jeśli chodzi o edukację, jeśli chodzi o edukację, jeśli chodzi o edukację, jeśli chodzi o edukację, jeśli It is about education when it comes to education when it comes to education when it comes to education.
Instead of focusing only on threats of artificial intelligence, corresponding to algorithmic prejudice, Jones, Pargett and Bashir, they challenge themselves to concentrate on the chances. “Often black people are very sensitive to threat and we quickly go into conversations about equal protection against bad things,” said Jones. “This is important. But our project is to be sensitive to possibilities-insulting that we are also in a conversation about equal access to good things.”
Libraries are a perfect entry point for such a democratized technological education. “The library has always been a technology center or anything else,” Bashir noted. “In the case of insufficient or underestimated people, the library is a place where they touch new technology for the first time. When the computers came out, when the internet began, people went to libraries to learn.”
During each AI X library workshop, participants can pick from topics corresponding to marketing with artificial intelligence, writing with AI-Holności, intelligent monitors and the long run of labor. Importantly, local librarians help select which topics might be taught on the idea of the needs of their patrons.
“We were looking for a way to transfer this conversation to real communities,” said Jones. “A lot of online and fancy conferences are happening, but not much at the neighborhood level. Most districts still have a library. This is a trusted place. We decided to go there.”
The project attracted participants on the age of seven and old as 70, creating an intergenerational learning environment. “We develop at least three new business ideas in every workshop,” said Bashir. “In Atlanta we had a mother who runs a collective at home. She said that they already use artificial intelligence to plan the curriculum – and even used artificial intelligence to find our event.”
Other participants are a waste management employee in Miami, bringing their two sons to study next to him, and grandparents examined AI tools for the primary time. “It is amazing that families learn together,” said Bashir. “Excience exists – creativity is there.”
Changing considering, not only skill sets
In contrast to the digital division in the 90s, where access to software and hardware created entry barriers, Jones believes that the most important obstacle with which our communities with which they stand today is the way in which of considering. “We have no problem with the equipment because everyone has a smartphone,” said Jones. “We have no problem with the software because it is so much free now. We have a problem with” wet software “. Our brains do not process artificial intelligence as something that is for black people. It must change. “
Instead of perceiving artificial intelligence as a perfect, almighty tool, Jones encourages people to give it some thought as “a bit stupid, but free, very fast interns”. He explained: “Nothing is perfect – you need to check human work and you need to check the work AI. But do you prefer to improve something that you will get in two weeks or improve something that you will get in two minutes?”
Marlon Avery repeated this sentiment, reminding the participants that everybody is involved with AI for the primary time at their very own pace. “It’s okay to hurry,” Avery said. “AI is like a treadmill – you can walk, jogging or sprint depending on what you are ready for. It is important to get on it.”
Building liberatorial innovations
Ultimately, the project of the AI X library concerns something greater than just learning latest tools – it is concerning the idea of a greater future.
“Liberatorial innovation is not only creating new technologies and new systems – it is about creating new freedoms,” explained Bashir. “Our brains, our communities, even our definitions of what it means to be human.
Jones emphasized the urgency of quite a lot of participation in technology. “When one small group tries to design a civilization for everyone, it doesn’t work well,” he said. “We now have a chance to build something more human, more simply – but only when everyone takes place at the table.”
When Dream Machine tries to scale the project of the AI X library outside its pilot cities, one thing is clear: the long run of innovation is not only happening in the Silicon Valley – it is built in neighborly libraries, one workshop without delay.
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