The ride-hailing company Taxify, which we have come to appreciate when Uber is acting up has rebranded. A move making a critical shift in the way it will be running its business as the company enters a new stage of growth. The company will now be called Bolt.
PS – The company has been operating a new line of electric scooter service that it named Bolt. It is interesting that they decided to make that name represent the entire company.
The Bolt ride-hailing company now wants to include in its fleet of vehicle, public transportation cars. Traditionally, it stuck with private cars. It is also reported that the company is also working on another round of funding.
The last round of funding by Bolt was in May 2018 and it closed it with $175 million funding and a valuation of $1 billion. The funding round was led by Daimler.
Markus Villing, co-founder and CEO of Bolt, said the next big growth round will come with a much bigger price tag. He refers to it as the $1 billion post-money valuations from their last round of ‘good start.’
It is interesting to note that since its last round of funding, Bolt has seen quite some growth. It currently boats of at least 10 million users across 25 countries across Africa and Europe among other territories.
But what’s in the name Bolt?
The rebranding of Taxify to Bolt serves a number of purposes. According to Villing, they are taping into the speed, since Bolt implies electric-fast speeds.
“We are bullish that the future is fully electric and so we wanted a name that moved us away from the combustion engine,” said Villing.
Other than just marking the transition to the futuristic electric engine technology. The name Bolt also marks the move from just using car taxis to using more scooters, mass public transport, and individual transport modes to their fleet