European Uber Technologies Inc. rival Bolt Technology OÜ has raised €628m ($711 million) in new funding to accelerate its stated mission to help cities transform urban areas into sustainable, people-friendly spaces.

Sequoia Capital and Fidelity led the Series F round, with Whale Rock and Owl Rock also participating. The round was raised on a valuation of €7.4B ($8.4 billion.) Including the new funding, Bolt has raised $2 billion to date, according to Crunchbase. Other investors include D1 Capital Partners, G Squared, Ghisallo Partners and Tekne Capital.

Founded in 2013 in Estonia, Bolt is a transportation platform that provides ride-hailing, micromobility and food delivery services. The company pitches itself as proof that owning a personal car is no longer a necessity.

Bolt’s services start with traditional ride-hailing, as well as e-scooter and e-bike rental, car sharing, and food and grocery delivery. Bolt says the funding will help it build a future in which cities need fewer parking spaces, have less congestion and produce lower emissions.

The funding will also be used to expand Bolt’s other product lines. One such line is Bolt Market, a grocery delivery service currently operating in 10 countries in Europe with dozens of stores. The plan is to expand the service to hundreds of stores by the end of the year.

Although not the best-known ride-hailing company, Bolt does provide a notable alternative to Uber. Bolt says it operates in 45 countries and 400 cities across Europe and Africa but strangely misses mentioning Asia in its funding press release. In parts of Southeast Asia, Bolt is the only rival to Grab Holdings Ltd. after Uber sold its local operations to Grab in 2018. That deal made Grab a proxy monopoly for a time, with Bolt now providing some much-wanted competition.

“For decades, cities have been built for private cars, rather than the people living and working in them,” Markus Villig, founder and chief executive officer of Bolt, said in the company’s release. “At Bolt, we think this approach is outdated, which is why our mission is to create cities for people, not cars.”

Photo: Bolt