Europe is running out of time for Uber
In order to help local companies “upgrade”, the European Union has also “scheduled” online car price wars.
According to foreign media reports, Uber ’s biggest rival in Europe, Bolt, has recently received a debt financing from the European Investment Bank. It is reported that the risk loan amount is 50 million euros (about 56 million US dollars), and its unique “quasi-equity” financing method is another alternative method for investment and investment in science and technology companies, through the company’s future revenue stream as a percentage Perform calculations to obtain financial returns to avoid diluting existing shareholder equity.
Bolt was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia. It is a travel internet company that provides urban transportation and transportation services. Its business fields include online car rental, shared electric scooters, and food delivery. After completing the Series C financing in the middle of last year, as a local unicorn worth more than 1 billion US dollars, Bolt is most highly expected to change the dominant position of Uber in the European car sharing market. , Didi, China, and many other big names have supported the investment. The European Investment Bank, which is injecting capital, is a lending department affiliated with the European Union, and praises Bolt as “a model of European technology and innovation excellence.”
Why Bolt?
Bolt has performed well in recent years. Currently, it has more than 30 million users in 150 cities in more than 30 countries. In London, Bolt and Uber have already faced each other. It is no different from the domestic online car-hailing platform scuffle. The competition between the two sides is also focused on price wars. By investing a lot of subsidies, it tries to capture the customer base at a lower price, while giving more benefits to drivers to urge them to join. Just six months into the London market, Bolt has registered more than 30,000 drivers. In contrast, as one of Uber’s top five markets in the world, only 45,000 drivers in London have used Uber.
Huge subsidies require a strong funding chain. Even though Bolt CEO Willig easily stated that achieving company-wide profitability mainly depends on how fast Bolt wants to expand, the EU obviously wants to help it go faster. For a long time, Europe has been missing heavyweight Internet companies. Even with continuous antitrust investigations and fines, Europe has not been able to effectively attack the pace of US science and technology giants in grabbing domestic markets. In the face of America’s mature business model and innovation capabilities, European science and technology startups seem to be falling into “lost generation after generation.”
Europe is now determined to take back a city on shared mobility.
On January 16, Bolt and the European Investment Bank stated in a joint statement that the financing will be mainly used for research and development spending, “to make their services safer and more sustainable while maintaining operational efficiency.
Sustainable security incidents and doubts about the sustainability of business modelsRival Uber is most criticized. According to CNN data, over the past four years, 103 Uber and 18 Lyft drivers have been charged with sexual assault or ill-treatment of passengers, as well as rape, abduction and harassment of not less than 31 drivers. This has also led to frequent attempts by European regulators. As early as 2017, the Transport for London has revoked Uber’s operating license. After that, Uber took the initiative to put on a series of “tights”, including regular report submission and the addition of independent directors, before seeking business restart. In the past year, Uber has been all the way “south” in Europe. In November, Uber’s London operations were again halted by government agencies. Just a month later, the Frankfurt District Court banned Uber from providing services in Germany on the grounds that Uber lacked the necessary licenses and violated passenger services.
Unlike Bolt, which is leaning against the EU tree, Uber, which is constantly burning money, is in a dilemma of having no money to burn due to the blocked market expansion. Since its listing, the market value has continued to shrink, and its loss in the first quarter of the third quarter of last year was as high as $ 1.1 billion. Previously, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi had vowed to make a profit by 2021. But with internal and external problems, can this goal be achieved?
Cover image source Engadget