Olgiate Comasco-based Fleequid, the first online marketplace built for buying and selling used buses, has raised €3 million in Seed funding to expand across Europe, grow its team, and improve its auction platform.
The round was led by Amsterdam-based DFF Ventures, with participation from Silence VC, FJ Labs and angel investor Jack Greco (Co-founder of ACV Auctions). This marks DFF’s second investment in Italy and the first for Silence and FJ.
“We’ve been in this world for 13 years,” said Co-founder Filippo Battaglia. “We know the players, we know the pain points, and we know how much value is lost in the current system. We built Fleequid to change that. We used to say no to 90% of buses at Basco because we didn’t have a scalable way to resell them. Now, we can say yes to all of them.”
Founded in 2024 by brothers Filippo and Federico Battaglia, Fleequid was created to address the problems of those operating in the commercial vehicle market for passenger transportation and are looking for simplicity, speed, and transparency.
As per figures provided by Fleequid, the bus resale market is surprisingly large, over 100,000 buses change hands every year in Europe alone. Yet, according to the company, the process remains slow, fragmented and offline.
Buses typically start in Northern Europe moving south and changing owners three to four times during their lifespan. Countries like Italy, Poland, Germany and Spain, with strong tourism sectors and large rural areas, rely heavily on these vehicles. But despite the market’s size, the process of buying and selling buses is still stuck in the past – according to Fleequid.
Most owners don’t know how to sell or who to sell to. Instead, they go straight to brokers: middlemen who operate in an opaque system full of hidden mark-ups. After more than a decade working in their family’s bus trading company Basco, the two founding brothers saw an opportunity to bring speed and trust to an industry that needed both.
Fleequid replaces backroom deals and long email chains with a single platform where sellers can list their vehicles and buyers can compete in open online auctions. Every bus comes with a full dossier: photos, videos, condition reports, technical inspection, all verified by Fleequid’s team.
Once a deal is made, Fleequid takes care of the entire transaction, from payment to ownership transfer and transport.
In its first months, Fleequid sold hundreds of buses. Buyers placed bids from Ghana, Romania and Iraq to core EU markets such as Italy, Poland and Bulgaria.
“We look for sharp founders tackling big problems in under-digitised markets,” said Maarten Engelen, Partner at DFF. “The Battaglia brothers are insiders who’ve decided to disrupt their own industry, and they’ve done it with the kind of execution and grit we love to back. Fleequid is not just a better way to trade buses. It’s the start of a new operating system for the entire sector.”
With this new round of funding, Fleequid plans to accelerate its rollout across Europe, further develop its technology, so companies can trade buses with the speed of clicking ‘buy now.’
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2025/05/italian-online-marketplace-for-used-buses-fleequid-raises-e3-million/
