Discounted shares in a secondary sale at ride hailing scaleup Bolt suggest a 14% valuation drop on the €7.4bn peak the company hit in 2022, as the Estonian unicorn vies with US giant Uber for Europe’s taxi app market.
Bolt is one of the region’s most valuable startups and has picked up just under $2bn in funding from investors including Sequoia, Fidelity and G Squared. The company last raised equity in a €628m round in 2022.
On Tuesday, investment platform Crowdcube launched a secondary share sale for Bolt at a discounted rate of €220 per share, representing a valuation of €6.3bn.
Founded in 2013, Bolt has added multiple services under its name, including scooter and e-bike rentals, food and grocery delivery and car-sharing in more than 600 cities across 50 countries.
The Estonian unicorn serves more than 200m customers with 4.5m drivers and says it generated nearly €2bn in revenue in 2024.
“We cannot comment on the methodologies used by third parties to make assumptions about our valuation — we are focused on running and growing the business,” Bolt told Sifted.
“As a result, our latest annual report recorded strong performance across all verticals in 2024, reaching the milestone of €2bn in revenue and returning to positive operating cash flow.”
Rise of secondaries
Bolt recorded a loss of €87.7m in 2024, according to its latest financial report, down from €94.3m the previous year. Revenue grew more than 17% from €1.7bn in 2023.
“Discounts are typical in secondary transactions, as sellers are effectively paying for the liquidity event,” said Crowdcube co-CEO Matt Cooper.
“Since Bolt’s last primary funding round, there have been a number of secondary share sales at a discount to that figure — including ours. This doesn’t represent a formal drop in Bolt’s valuation, but rather the market mechanics of secondary sales.”
A previous secondary share sale in December on platform Seedblink offered Bolt shares at a 10% discount from their 2022 price.
Not all secondary share sales are offered at discounts. Earlier this year fintech Revolut turned down a secondary share sale which would’ve valued the company at $65bn — a jump on its previously reported valuation of $45bn in 2024.
Bolt’s share sale is the first of a series of deals for growth-stage companies that Crowdcube is launching as a response to companies staying private for longer by “choice or necessity”, says Cooper.
Secondary share sales have grown in popularity over the past few years as public markets have remained frozen, limiting liquidity events for investors.
That’s led to more late stage businesses looking to free up cash for early investors through secondary deals, says Cooper.
Nearly 80% of tech companies were considering a secondary share sale in the next 12 months, according to a Ledgy report in January, and big name VCs are increasingly raising funds to jump into the market.
Earlier this year, Sifted reported that UK firm Hedosophia was raising over $200m for a secondary fund. Sequoia also officially launched a $500m fund called Pinegrove in 2024 and NEA raised nearly the same amount for its own secondary vehicle the same year.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/bolt-valuation-secondary-share-sale/
