On April 21, the French service for road trips BlaBlaCar raised $115 million at a $2 billion valuation. As part of the round, the company has announced the acquisition of Ukrainian Octobus, a cloud platform for the automation of bus passenger transportation. The news was told to AIN.UA by BlaBlaCar.
- According to the company, the acquisition of Octobus will effectively develop bus services, accelerate the digitalization of this market in Ukraine, and scale it to the countries where BlaBlaCar operates.
- In particular, the deal will expand the capabilities of BlaBlaCar. The service of bus transportation, which the company plans to launch, will have a website, a mobile application for online sales, a call center for telephone sales, as well as a mobile application for drivers and staff.
- It is noted that BlaBlaCar has made this decision as part of its overall development strategy.
“Together with the strong and talented team of Octobus, we will offer carriers a technology that will help them ensure an optimal online presence, optimize their business processes by focusing on the key tasks of their business, the quality of services, and, consequently, increase sales,” commented Aleksey Lazorenko, General Manager of BlaBlaCar in Ukraine.
- According to Ivan Kirov, Founder & CEO of Octobus, the system will remain an independent tool for bus carriers to manage their business processes.
- Existing BlaBlaCar partners will be able to use the service for free.
- To recap, at the end of 2019, BlaBlaCar in Ukraine went beyond carpooling rides and acquired Busfor, the largest bus service operator in Central and Eastern Europe.
- BlaBlaCar will also launch a large engineering hub in Ukraine. Ukrainian developers will work on the development and scaling of the bus marketplace.
The company Octobus was founded in 2018 in Kyiv. As of 2021, the Octobus platform is used by bus carriers in eight countries of the world. In Ukraine, Octobus unites bus operators, major bus terminals, and online agencies in single distribution space, allowing to sell tens of thousands of bus tickets per month.
