One day, there will be a service to book tickets for any mean of transportation: by train, bus, plane, carpool, rental car or… autonomous vehicle! In short, an app that finds you the best solution to move according to your constraints. We have this conviction, and this is why we created Kombo.
We are 2 founders, Clément and Matthieu, and we started Kombo in 2016. To develop the site mentioned in the previous paragraph, we wanted to start with bus, as it had just been liberalized in France with the Macron law, in 2015. In less than 2 years, we have developed a unique website, for 3 reasons.
Integrated payment on all companies
Kombo offers the routes of all coach operators present in France and Europe: Ouibus, Flixbus, Isilines, Eurolines, but also Alsa, Marino or National Express… But there is more. Booking bus tickets is done directly on the Kombo website. This allows for example to buy a round trip at the best price, even if the bus companies are different for the outward journey and the return.
Intermodality technology
Do you live in Reims and want to go to Bruges? You are in Grenoble and you want to go to Madrid? You can check each coach operator website but you will not find any route. Why? Simply because that does not exist. So we have developed an inter-modality technology, which combines tickets from different companies to create unique routes, and find them in a fraction of a second. That gives 3 advantages for the traveller : routes that were not possible, cheaper prices thanks to this combination, and more choice with more trips available.
The simplest interface
We designed Kombo by constantly putting ourselves in the customer’s shoes. The goal is to create the simplest possible bus ticket booking interface. Let’s be clear : we love what Jean-Daniel Guyot did with Captain Train. So we take it as a compliment when media present us as the “Captain Train of buses”. The platform is mobile first as the majority of bookings are done through smartphones. This why there are only 3 pages to buy a ticket: the home, the results, and the booking. The booking process requires only information, which is necessary, and when it is necessary. We have used cognitive psychology to evaluate the right number of steps in the process, their nature, the UX of each step and their order.
In March 2018 we have raised €600k from famous French Business Angels. Several were entrepreneurs and did exits >€100m, like Patrick Dalsace (La Fourchette) or Nicolas Brumelot (Go Voyages, Misterfly). This means that it is actually just the beginning for Kombo and we have great plans for the coming months. Let’s talk again in 1 year.
