The Estonian company Bolt enters to compete in Barcelona with Cabify and Uber

The transport platform Bolt has launched this Monday its taxi and VTC ---vehicle with driver--- service in Barcelona. Until now, the Estonia-based company only offered electric bicycle rental service in the Catalan capital, but with the new service it will also compete with Cabify and Uber and, therefore, with the taxi sector.

Thus, the company arrives in Barcelona with 1,000 registered drivers, counting taxis and VTCs, as the final stretch of the moratorium on the decree of the former Minister of Transport, José Luis Ábalos, which allows rental vehicles with drivers to circulate in urban areas, is approached. The deadline expires at the end of September and it will be then when the Generalitat will have to assume the regulation of the taxi sector.

Worldwide, Bolt offers services to more than 45 countries and 400 cities. In a statement, the company has assured that it is betting on the Spanish market, where it sees that it "is growing rapidly." In fact, in Madrid it has operated in taxi and VTC since August 2021, less than a year ago. Likewise, in the statement Bolt has defended the "coexistence" of the taxi model with VTC licenses.

For its part, Élite Taxi criticized Bolt's "aggressive" pricing policy. "Discounts reach 75 percent, which endangers the survival of taxis and completely destroys the regulated fare," lamented the entity in statements to the ACN agency. In this vein, they assure that the launch of Bolt "greatly complicates" negotiations with the Generalitat for the regulation of VTC licenses. In mid-May, hundreds of taxi drivers already demonstrated in the center of Barcelona to ask the Generalitat to maintain the proportion of one VTC for every 30 taxis once the moratorium ends.

Founded by Markus Villig in 2013, Bolt has more than 100 million customers in over 45 countries, where it offers all kinds of urban mobility services, from electric scooters and motorcycles, shared vehicle fleets, and ride-hailing. The company also operates in the business of ultra-fast deliveries of prepared food and supermarket products. Bolt is one of Estonia's most successful startups and one of Europe's main unicorns, whose valuation exceeded 7 billion euros after closing, earlier this year, a new financing round of 628 million ---the largest in its history--- led by Sequoia and Fidelity Management funds.