Volt announced the closing of a $550k seed round led by Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP) and Saned Partners. The main objective of this round is to scale operations and product development in Istanbul, accelerate the driver user base growth and launch to passengers.
Volt in a Nutshell
Volt is an on-demand urban peer-to-peer ride-sharing app that connects car owners with passengers going in the same direction, all in real-time. Unlike traditional car hailing apps that dispatch cars to the passenger’s location, Volt connects passengers with cars already driving in traffic and heading in the same direction. Car owners earn back their driving expenses (~500₺/mo - without making profit), while passengers enjoy rides that are 70% cheaper than taxi.
For Drivers, Volt this week becomes a turn-by-turn traffic navigation app that shows commuter drivers the fastest route to their destination while looking for paying passengers along their way. For passengers, the app looks just like a ride-hailing / taxi booking app with the only difference being that passengers have to set their destination first. And since Volt matches passengers with non-professional peer drivers that are heading in the same direction, rides on Volt are 70% cheaper than taxi, a price point no one in the market can match.
Disrupting Urban Mobility
Volt’s business model is heading towards reshaping the urban mobility space. On the supply side, Volt’s total addressable market (potential drivers) in a given city is in the 100’s of thousands, as it’s not limited to professional drivers, but more to everyday commuter drivers. On the demand side, Volt’s pricing is closer to public transport than it is to taxis.
“With already thousands of highly engaged users, we believe that Volt has found the solution to one of the most indigenous problems of high density cities. We're excited to seed Volt with $500k and we wish the team the best in their scaling of growth in Istanbul” said Walid Mansour, Managing Partner at MEVP, “We're also looking forward to larger rounds that will help Volt expand its solution globally.”
Moving Forward
They will use this investment to achieve 2 things: 1) Accelerate the driver user base growth and 2) open the demand floodgates to passengers around the routes/districts that are seeing supply build up on Volt.
In parallel, they are raising a $2.5m round that will allow them to scale growth in Istanbul and lock the marketplace within 2017. Another part of the 2.5$m round will be used to finance the expansion to Volt's second city, which will definitely be outside Turkey.
Source: Arabnet