Volt Lines raises 2 million TL from Hedef Filo and Dubai-based VC MEVP
I’m glad to announce that Volt Lines has raised 2 million Turkish Liras from Hedef Filo and Dubai-based VC MEVP with participation from Ömer Erkmen and Ali Çebi. This brings the total capital raised so far to 2.4 million TL since we started 10 months ago.
The closing took place in May of 2018, so this is kind of a late announcement. In fact, Volt Lines is expected to close another round of financing within the upcoming few weeks. The new round will allow us to triple our sales force, scale-up customer on-boarding and operations, and invest more on R&D and tech.
About the investors
MEVP is one of the largest venture capital firms in the MENA region and currently manages regional technology-focused venture capital funds with more than USD 220 million in assets under management and another USD 100 million in co-investments. To date, MEVP’s team, comprising 23 investment professionals, have invested in more than 40 portfolio companies across MENA and Turkey.
“We’re very happy to join Volt Lines’ journey in digitally transforming employee transportation and the commute experience. Volt Lines has successfully created an exciting B2B model in Istanbul, solving a real pain for employers, employees and the city with its cloud based platform. We also see a much bigger opportunity in exporting this to MENA where the gap in public transportation infrastructure can be filled with Volt Lines’ technology and business model, leapfrogging the region to the future of smart shared mobility.” — Walid Mansour — MEVP Partner and Chief Investment Officer
Hedef Filo is one of Turkey’s largest corporate car leasing companies. It’s important to highlight that this investment marks Hedef Filo’s first CVC (Corporate Venture Capital) investment ever. This brings to life their strategy of becoming a leader in smart mobility and MaaS solutions (mobility as a service).
The round also saw Ömer Erkmen and Ali Çebi joining as angel investors. By the way, both MEVP and Ali Çebi were investors in my previous startup Volt, which shows a great example of investors backing an entrepreneur in his next venture despite have lost principal in the first.
What is Volt Lines?
Volt Lines is a subscription based transportation service. I usually liked to explain it like this: “we’re the Netflix of transportation”. Instead of companies renting buses directly from bus operators (equivalent of renting DVDs in the Netflix example), companies can now buy a monthly subscription from Volt Lines. Their employees get a mobile app that gives them access to unlimited rides on all Volt Lines buses.
Istanbul has more than 50,000 buses transporting nearly 1 million passengers everyday. These buses operate at less than 40% occupancy on average, which is quite inefficient for companies. Our system is helping companies digitally transform their employee transport and increase their employee satisfaction while reducing their costs by up to 15%.
Having commercially entered the market in April 2018, Volt Lines today serves 5 customers, with 10s of customers expected to join over the next few months. I’m also proud to announce that we have partnered up with Gürsel, Transay, and Azal on the operations side, allowing us to guarantee a reliable service for our customers. We are also expecting to add another 2 operational partners within the next couple of months.
What’s Next?
We’re working hard on crossing the 1.5% market share by the end of 2019. While doing so, we’re building the technology with scale in mind, already eyeing multiple cities in the MENA region to expand into. As a Lebanese national myself, I know first hand the gap in mass transit our region has and Volt Lines together with its operational partners can be the solution to congestion in our cities.
Thank you for reading this update, and please make sure you follow us on social media to see keep track of our updates, news, and how we’re reducing traffic in our city, one trip at a time.
By the way, our team is expected to grow significantly over the next few months, so please make sure to check our Careers page if you’re interested in putting your skills to use in easing Istanbul’s traffic congestion.
