Markus Villig

The story starts decades before Bolt, in Estonia. Growing up in the 90s, after Estonia gained independence from the Soviet Union, there was a sense of newfound freedom. Entrepreneurship had been banned, so when we finally could build businesses it felt revolutionary. At 10 years old, I was inspired by my brother working at Skype, which was founded in Estonia.

By 19, while others were studying for exams, I was Googling, “How do you start a startup?” With zero budget, I used Google Forms to validate the frustrations people had with the taxi industry. From there, I hit the streets of Tallinn, signing up drivers and coding the app myself. Unlike competitors with massive funding, we bootstrapped for four years, running on a $1 million investment from local angel investors, mostly from the Skype team. It was intense but we built a business with over $10 million ARR competing against Uber, which had raised billions. This ethos has persisted as the company has scaled. Bolt has been cash flow positive for over a year; we are one of the most capital efficient operators in this category.

In the early days, we were paranoid about distractions. We knew we were competing against companies with 100 times more funding, so we focused solely on ride-hailing and were very selective about markets. By 2018, the business was big enough to pursue other opportunities, so we expanded into food delivery. This was a neglected market in Central and Eastern Europe, with at least a $10 billion opportunity. We started food delivery in 2019, and six months later, COVID hit. Mobility dropped by 80% so we doubled down on food delivery, which quickly became a meaningful part of the business.

Now, we see fantastic synergies across our business lines. For example, 60% of our food delivery customers were already using other Bolt services. This integration helps us save on marketing, operations, technology, and public policy.

We aim to charge customers less and pay drivers more, which is funded through ruthless capital allocation and cost efficiency. For example, in Thailand, we invested just $50,000 to establish a presence and take significant market share and are turning profitable quickly. Uber and other competitors often raise prices and commissions, frustrating both customers and drivers. By being cost-efficient and hyper-focused, we have a strong track record of growing faster than peers and gaining significant market share even in regions where there’s a dominant player.

There are three main areas of growth. First, there’s significant room to penetrate existing markets further, as urban trips on our platform still account for only 1-2% of total trips. Second, geographic expansion remains a priority, with hundreds of cities globally yet to be launched. Third, we are exploring new products to bring more value to customers and keep expanding our ecosystem. Together, these strategies will allow Bolt to scale efficiently and maintain its position as a global leader in shared mobility and on-demand services.