Turkish ride-hailing startup, Volt Lines announces closing of carve-out round
The Turkey-based ride-hailing startup, Volt Lines has closed its carve-out round, with a 30 percent oversubscription, after separating from SWVL in January.
The round will help Volt Lines to achieve its short-term objective of attaining positive free cash flow by the end of 2023.
Founder and CEO, Ali Halabi said, “After successfully taking back control of the business in January, we’re happy to announce today that Volt Lines is well capitalized to navigate current market conditions and is on track to achieve positive free cash flow within the year.”
Volt Lines provides its corporate clients with mass transit and ride-hailing services utilizing a network of smartly routed shared buses.
The startup nearly tripled its monthly recurring revenue since the start of 2022 and improved its margins by more than 25 percentage points. The company is expected to double its revenue again in 2023 thanks to back-to-office solid demand as well as its successful expansion into schools, all while being on track to become cash flow positive by Q4 of 2023.
“Our team continues to execute flawlessly, and I’m honestly very impressed with what we’ve achieved in the last year. This gives me a lot of confidence and excitement about the future of Volt Lines.” Halabi further stated.
Volt Lines currently controls just under 1% market share of Turkey’s $2 billion corporate and school commute market, the majority of which is concentrated in Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, which has a population of 20 million people and where the company’s HQ and R&D center are located. The scaleup aims to capture a 10% market share by 2027 and has plans to transition to a fully electric fleet by 2030.
“Our short-term objectives go beyond just Turkey. We are now pursuing a dual strategy of continuing our profitable growth in the TaaS segment in Turkey while expanding our SaaS offering overseas.” Halabi added.
The scaleup aims to open its 5-years in making B2B software for other operators abroad that want to digitalize their operations and transform their customer experience.
Being both a software developer and an operator in Turkey, Volt Lines is well-positioned to be a great technology partner for players abroad where a win-win setup can be established. Volt Lines operates and powers hundreds of bus lines and moves thousands of people every day. “We use this hands-on know-how to continuously improve our software stack and we believe the tech is ready for a debut on the world stage,” Halabi said.
Possible markets where this software can be offered to local partners include Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and the UAE, where Volt Lines is already present in Abu Dhabi Global Market.
CEO of Dubai-based Genero Capital, Tamer Bazzari said, “Many investors felt that the strong team whose track record has been proven, attractive market opportunity, substantial revenue growth, and a clear path to becoming cash flow positive in 2023, made the opportunity very compelling.”
The Co-Founder and CEO of corporate car leasing company, Hedef Filo and car sharing scaleup TikTak, Ersan Öztürk said, “We have full confidence and trust in the business model of Volt Lines and believe in the management’s vision. Volt Lines has shown significant improvement in margins in its business, and we are always looking for ways to increase our shareholding position in the company. This carve-out round presented a great opportunity for us to do so.”
Volt Lines took back control of its Dutch Holding Company’s shares from Swvl on January 16th, 2023, in a new SPA that reversed last year’s $65M acquisition.
SWVL has unwound its takeover of Volt Lines due to its falling stock price and subsequent financial constraints.
Volt Lines has operations in Istanbul, Ankara, and other cities in Turkey.