Co-Founder & CEO, BlaBlaCar SA (Comuto SA)
Nicolas Brusson (BlaBlaCar) : L'entreprise enfin rentable
Ce mardi 9 avril,Brusson, cofondateur et directeur général de BlaBlaCar a parlé de son renforcement à l'internationale, et du financement de son entreprise, dans l'émission Good Morning Business, présentée par Christophe Jakubyszyn. Good Morning Business est à voir ou écouter du lundi au vendredi sur BFM Business. 👋 Bienvenue sur la chaîne YouTube officielle de BFM Business, première chaîne d'information économique et financière de France.
📺 Chaque jour, suivez en vidéo l'intégralité de l'actualité économique, boursière, entrepreneuriale et financière. De Good Morning Business à La Grande Int...
About Nicolas Brusson
Nicolas Brusson, co-founder and CEO of BlaBlaCar, has spoken at several conferences between 2013 and 2016 about the company's growth and vision. He described BlaBlaCar as a long-distance ride-sharing platform that allows drivers with empty seats to offer them to passengers traveling the same route, offsetting the cost of driving without making a profit. Brusson emphasized that the company was originally not conceived as part of the sharing economy but later benefited from that framing. He noted that the brand name, derived from users' talking preferences, has helped with word-of-mouth and press coverage. Brusson has discussed the company's approach to funding and expansion, stating that BlaBlaCar never formally pitched to large numbers of venture capitalists but instead built targeted relationships with investors over time. He said the goal is to build global companies to remain competitive against U.S. and Chinese competitors. Brusson highlighted that 80% of intercity passenger traffic is done by car, and that BlaBlaCar aims to improve road efficiency by filling empty seats. He said the company initially focuses on usage in new markets, such as India, before introducing monetization like booking fees. Brusson also predicted that as cars become autonomous, private cars will increasingly become public transport, and that the long-term trend will involve shared, self-driving cars.
Transcript (9 segments)
H
Host0:00
Good morning, Good Morning Business. Today, hello Nicolas Brusson. We welcome you for many reasons. First, because you are now in surplus, you are no longer burning cash, exactly since last year, since 2023. Well done, because for a company that was created how many years ago? 2006, so 2006, which really started operationally in 2010, 2011. Yeah, it takes about 12 to 15 years to become profitable. So it takes 12 to 15 years to become profitable internationally. You have an international ambition. And how much cash did you burn during these 15 years? If we look, it's complicated. But how much did you raise? There's almost 200 million, well, 200 million that was invested over this period, between 200 and 250 million. Well, that's behind you now. You are making profits and growing. Moreover, you obtained a new credit line of 200, 100 million euros. It's not really equity, it's banking facilities. No, exactly, so now we are moving from a traditional equity financing model, you dilute, and investors come in and take the risk on the future. Now, this is recent. We have been profitable for about a year, basically 2023 was the first truly profitable year for the company. We can start financing with debt, which is a fairly classic financing for companies, and it allows non-dilutive financing, but obviously you have to be able to repay the debt, so you have to remain profitable, with revenue that increased by nearly 30% last year to 253 million euros. What do you want to do now? I saw that incredibly in India and Brazil, you have become the first country in terms of number of passengers with this cash facility, so to speak. What are you going to do with it? Where are you going? What are the next target countries?
N
Nicolas Brusson1:42
Yes, so maybe first, if we take a step back, it's true that we took a bet from 2012-2013 that was a truly global bet. So we said we will install BlaBlaCar in Europe and outside Europe, in countries like India, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, which are still relatively complicated countries, and it takes time. So part of the trajectory, beyond COVID, the COVID parenthesis in between, is that it takes time to develop. It took more time than we naively imagined at the beginning to develop the activity in these countries. Now the good news is that it works, and today we have a dynamic where half or more than half of the passengers transported on BlaBlaCar are transported not only outside France but outside Europe, in countries such as Brazil, India, Mexico, Turkey, etc.
H
Host2:30
Is it the same model everywhere? For example, how does the split work between carpooling and the platform for coaches?
N
Nicolas Brusson2:39
It's the same model and the same vision everywhere. Basically, the vision is really to become this aggregator of land transport and to be able to find on BlaBlaCar eventually everything that is land transport, whether it's cars, intercity buses, and eventually trains, and even combine these trips together. So when we look at that in India, in the newer countries, let's say in India, Mexico, Turkey, we only have carpooling. In Brazil, we already have carpooling and bus. And in France, we have carpooling, bus, daily carpooling. We will add trains eventually, etc. So the model is the same, but there is a diffusion time internationally that is relatively slow.
H
Host3:20
Then we always talk about profitability now displayed. One question about this investigation from Le Monde and the famous energy savings certificates or something illegal that groups like EDF must give part of their profit to companies that allowed them to contribute to carbon economy. You benefited from it. What share does it represent today of your income statement?
N
Nicolas Brusson3:49
Yes, let me answer the question and then maybe explain because it's something quite complex and quite old really as a system. It represents, and it has always represented if we look over the past 10 years, roughly 20% of revenue. It's the same thing ten years ago, it fluctuates slightly but roughly it has always represented about 20%. So 20% of that are checks from TotalEnergies? That's how it works. So we're talking about energy savings certificates, which are gifts to customers with checks, etc. But you have to understand that all of this is within a very broad framework in which carpooling was integrated, I think in 2011-2012, but carpooling is very small in it, it represents 2% of the certificates, and the bulk of the certificates are generated in buildings, typically when you install a heat pump, solar panels, building insulation, etc. So it's a system that has its roots in European directives and a global desire to decarbonize. So it's a tool often called polluter pays, which indeed contributes to polluting industries that have to buy certificates from decarbonized industries, such as heat pumps, carpooling, etc. We put this in place in 2012, the volumes were obviously very small because carpooling was very small, and it grew with the rest of the activity. So what you need to understand is that these are fairly complex systems that are described as opaque. It's not opaque, it's complex. Opaque and complex are two different things. It has existed for twenty years, and it's absolutely not taxpayer money. It's actually TotalEnergies that buys certificates from BlaBlaCar.
H
Host5:28
You say 20% of revenue, so about 50 million euros, and not 100 million euros as Le Monde claims, for example.
N
Nicolas Brusson5:36
No, then it depends. I don't know exactly what they are counting when they talk about 200 million in terms of revenue. Then if you look at the carpooling industry, what it generates in gifts to drivers, etc., maybe you get figures that look like that for the entire industry, not just for BlaBlaCar because we represent only half or less than half of daily carpooling. So there is a broader industry behind it.
H
Host5:55
Thank you for these explanations, Nicolas Brusson, CEO of BlaBlaCar, who was our guest on Good Morning Business.