This ain’t blah blah! $200M for ride-sharing app BlaBlaCar to roll out across Asia

Ride-sharing is not new to Indians. There is a bus stop in Mumbai where a taxi leaves every 15 minutes with four passengers bound for Pune, 150 kilometers away. People queue up there to get into these ride-sharing cabs, which are more economical than the long distance bus ride which is far less comfortable. In every Indian city there are such vantage points from where people jump into a vehicle to share an inter-city ride.

Technology is taking this sharing to a new level. Earlier this year, French ride-sharing platform BlaBlaCar arrived in India to connect car owners with others travelling long distances so that both groups can save money. In its first six months in this large country, BlaBlaCar clocked a whopping 17 million shared kilometers and 350,000 seats across 700 cities.

Today, it announced US$200 million in series D funding led by Insight Venture Partners and Lead Edge Capital. Vostok New Ventures participated in the round. “With this additional investment, we’ll be able to accelerate our growth in new markets,” Nicolas Brusson, BlaBlaCar’s co-founder and COO, says in a statement announcing the funding.

Fast growth in new markets

Demand for BlaBlaCar is fueled in emerging markets by gaps in public transport and the high cost of owning and running a car. Currently, India is the only Asian country in which it operates. But with over US$300 million in total funding so far, BlaBlaCar is now eyeing newer markets in Asia and Latin America.

As a connecting platform, BlaBlaCar needs to tap the demand from riders as well as build a pool of verified car owners willing to share rides. It claims to have 20 million verified members for inter-city car journeys in India. Apart from routes and prices, members can even specify how chatty they are – from “Bla” to “BlaBlaBla” – hence the name BlaBlaCar.

BlaBlaCar’s main rival is Tripda from Brazil, which launched in India in November last year – just two months before BlaBlaCar arrived. It is reported to be clocking 100 percent growth month on month, connecting 400 cities as of June. The Rocket Internet-backed ride-sharing app is growing twice as fast in India as it is globally.

And its most popular route in India? The Mumbai-Pune corridor. Some things don’t change after all.