Voi CEO says he’s open to acquiring Bolt’s micromobility business

The shared micrromobility startup is in search of Voi acquisition. And the CEO Frederick Hzelom’s list of desires is Bolt, European Mobility Super-App is best known for ride-helling.

Not that Bolt’s micromobility business is essentially for sale – despite speaking Voi is the company’s buy Scooter and the arm of the bike. Bolt refused to comment when TechCrunch reached.

“Bolt is a great organization, but they are basically a Ride-hilling The agency, “Hazelm Brussels told TechCranch on the Micromobility Industries Roundtable stage, where he joined Bird’s co-chief executive Michael Washinushi and Dot/Tear CEO Henry Mysinak.

Hzelm said that Bolt’s challenge is “It needs to be very good in several vertical cases”. Excluding ride-hilling, bolt grocery and food supplies as well as car rentals.

“Micromobility is very difficult, and it has hardware aspects, but there is no network effect on how to distribute food and ride-helling [can lead to] Grocery distribution also, ”said Hzelm.

He mentions that most people who choose Dockless e-Scooters or e-bikes are local people who have experience and affordable priority than skill to use “super app” like bolts.

When an instance of riders that use micromobility services is provided because they recognize the brand – and no other app may download – he is stuck in this thesis. Hzelm said he didn’t think that the brand recognition was enough for the worse user experience.

Of course, VoI does not prove any information that provides better user experience than Bolt. It did not prevent others from joining the bolt pile on the panel.

“Bolt uses prices as a loss leader,” Bird’s Washinushi said, in the loss of Bolt, his micromobility refers to relying on revenue from his other activities to increase the business. “They give the price discount and that way they get installed my idea is that they do not make a huge investment in really good operations in micromobility.”

Washinushi mentioned that birds, as well as dot and voy, use a lot of data to balance vehicles.

“You can throw away thousands of vehicles and hope people get the journey, or you can … to optimize the rides and to adapt the price to the price of the vehicle at the right time and at the right time,” he said. ”And it is [how] The business has really developed in the last two or three years … This makes it a very self -sufficient business for us. ”

In 2024, Bird said that it had achieved the $ 19 million adjusted EBITDA proficient – that was quite a reputation for such a company Listed Filed from the stock market and for Bankrupt Two years ago. Voo has achieved it First profitable year Last year with $ 17.9 million adjusted EBITDA.

Bolt did not share the financial number for his micromobility business. In November 2024, the agency said it was hit $ 2.11 billion in annual income Its business units across, but did not share how much it lost. Accordingly Local reportBolt has recorded about $ 2 billion in the operating loss of about $ 108 million in 2023.

TechCrunch on Wednesday tried to follow why he wanted to achieve Bolt with Hzelm and whether he was in talks with the company.

“I am in the Swedish House Mafia Reunion and will think about Bolt tomorrow,” he reacted.

TechCrunch will update this story if there is more to say about Hzelm.