• During the strike, couriers disable the Bolt Food application every day after 2 pm so that the company cannot perform its functions due to a shortage of workers.
• The couriers stick stickers with the inscription “Couriers go on strike” on their backpacks and the buildings of Kyiv in solidarity with each other.
• The couriers are demanding a minimum revenue threshold per order, bonuses, quality health insurance, and vehicle registration.

Ihor Shramko, the Country Manager of Bolt Food in Ukraine, commented on the situation. He stated that the income of the Bolt Food couriers was the highest in the Ukrainian market and that the company provided insurance to workers from the first day the service was launched:

High courier profits are generated by a combination of basic income and bonuses and are ensured by having a sufficient number of orders. That is why we reserve the right to combine these tools.

At the same time, the income of our couriers is steadily high due to the growth in the number of orders. In the future, we plan to continue stimulating the growth of demand for Bolt Food services by investing in this area. This policy will be economically beneficial for both the company and the couriers.

The company will be able to increase its customer base, bring new restaurants to the app, and improve its offerings. In turn, couriers will be able to get more orders and increase their profits.

• The company’s valuation rose to $4.75 billion. Bolt’s previous valuation was $2 billion.
• Among the investors are Sequoia, Tekne, Ghisallo, and existing G Squared, D1 Capital, and Naya.
• The company plans to use the fresh funding on its grocery delivery service — to kick it off in ten European countries, including Sweden, Portugal, Croatia, and Romania.
• The company closed its previous round in March this year. Bolt received 20 million euros from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a sister organization of the World Bank.
• Earlier, in December 2020, Bolt closed a €150 million round. The round was led by D1 Capital Partners, with participation from Darsana Capital Partners.
• Like other companies in the niche, Bolt was hit with a severe drop in revenues at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, CNBC notes. However, things have stabilized in recent months as countries began lifting quarantine restrictions. As of August 2021, Bolt has 75 million users in 45 countries in Europe and Africa.

What happened?

April 5 in Kyiv became the first day of another strict lockdown, which the city authorities announced earlier, on March 31. As part of the lockdown, the use of public transport was limited, and the residents of Kyiv had to use minibusses, buses, trolleybuses, and the subway only if they had special pass-tickets issued to critical infrastructure workers. Overall, around 500,000 pass-tickets were issued in the city with a population of almost 3 million people.

“And, of course, Kyiv cab services immediately took advantage of this,” says Khmelnitskyy.

Indeed, in the conditions when the use of public transport was restricted, the residents of Kyiv, who didn’t have a car, were forced to travel around the city by cab. That resulted in incredible demand and, thus, made the prices of popular services skyrocket. In some areas, for an Uber or Bolt ride from the Left Bank to the Right Bank, a tariff over UAH 1,000 (approx. $35) was fixed. Facebook users also actively discussed this phenomenon and were indignant at it.

Taras Potichny, a ride-hailing market expert, told AIN.UA why this had happened. He assured that it was not the greedy cab services that were to blame but the pricing algorithms. He also added that the market would soon stabilize. Indeed, the very next day, when the tide of interest subsided, ride-hailing service prices stabilized and returned to the pre-quarantine ones.

However, officials came in on this situation.

And what about the AMCU?

According to Khmelnitskyy, the AMCU received a lot of complaints from the residents of Kyiv about a sharp spike in prices. They were particularly indignant at Uber, Bolt, and Uklon.

“We cannot ignore so many complaints. Moreover, the situation may indicate possible violations in the actions of ride-hailing services covered by Part 3 of Article 6 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Protection of Economic Competition” (concerted anticompetitive actions of business entities) and/or Part 1 of Article 13 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Protection of Economic Competition” (abuse of a monopoly (dominant) position),” writes the chairman of the Kyiv territorial branch of the AMCU.

In this regard, the Kyiv regional territorial branch of the AMCU launched an investigation as to compliance with the legislation by the participants of the car-hailing market (as well as companies that provide services in these markets).

In the comments to this post, users note that cab prices from the mentioned companies have already returned to normal, and the sharp spike, which the AMCU regarded as a malicious attempt to capitalize on the coronavirus situation, is a completely normal reaction of the market to the phenomenal demand. However, some praised the initiative of the officials and spoke in favor of taxi price regulation by the government.

Why this is interesting: Probably, the AMCU wants to know how the algorithms of international and Ukrainian services work and to study the laws of the market economy when demand exceeds supply exponentially.

• DiDi started to gather a team to launch the service in Ukraine back in 2020.
• At the moment, there is no specific date, but DiDi will launch in Ukraine in 2021.
• DiDi will become the fourth big service in Ukraine, following Uklon, Uber (DiDi has a stake in this company), and Bolt.
• The entry of a player of DiDi’s level will have a strong impact on the Ukrainian market of cab aggregators, especially on drivers whose number is limited. The launch of the service will obviously create additional demand for drivers, and they will receive bonuses for that.
• So far, it is unknown whether DiDi will enter only with cabs or include other services, like bike rentals.

DiDi is a Chinese aggregator offering a full range of app-based services for over 550 million users. The company has raised more than $21 billion since its founding in 2012. According to the latest available data, its valuation exceeds $56 billion.

In 2020, DiDi launched in Russia and further plans to enter the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as post-Soviet countries, including the launch in Ukraine.

The editorial team of AIN.UA sent a request to the company for details but did not receive an answer at the time of publishing.

Founded in 2013 by CEO Markus Villig, Bolt is one of the fastest-growing transportation platforms in the world with investors including Daimler, Didi Chuxing, Korelya Capital, and TransferWise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus. According to Tech Crunch, Bolt is valued at nearly $1.9 billion.

How Bolt`s story began

When Bolt founder Markus Villig was 19 years old and still studying at high school, he had the idea of putting the taxi services in Tallinn and Riga onto a single digital platform. There were 30 taxi companies in Tallinn at the time, all operating on old school call-in devices, with an operator, mediating the rides from a central station, Invest Estonia writes. 

The early start was quite promising. Markus did a Google Docs survey in his school to which he received 600 answers, 90% out of which responded that there is an acute need for a new taxi platform. 

He asked his parents for money, which they had set aside for his studies at university. With $6,000 from his parents, who also helped him by doing customer support outside of their regular working hours, he hired a developer to help him launch the business.

It was Oliver Leisalu who built versions of both the driver’s and customer’s app. He’s now one of the co-founders of Bolt, which really took off shortly after he joined. In 2014, Bolt raised the first round of $1.7 million from investors and began to develop and scale very quickly. 

Bolt`s services 

The company offers a vehicle for hire, bicycles, and scooters, business and food delivery services. Bolt is headquartered in Tallinn, and available in 35 countries (in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and North America) and in more than 150 cities. The company has 30 million customers globally and more than 1 million drivers use the Bolt platform. Bolt has an application available for Android, IOS, and Windows.

The taxi service is clear: the client requires a trip and confirms his location. After the driver accepts the trip, the customer will be able to see the driver’s name and car details. At the end of the trip, both the driver and the rider can rate each other.

In August 2019, the company launched its food delivery service, Bolt Food. Bolt Food allows ordering favorite foods from restaurants, direct to the door. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company has launched Bolt Food grocery delivery. The company writes that the average waiting time for a Bolt Food delivery is about 30 minutes.

Also, Bolt has a business delivery service that allows vendors to deliver their products to their customers affordably, all via one easy-to-use web interface. It’s simple to set up and businesses can take advantage of our large network of drivers and couriers within just a few minutes.

Moreover, Bolt is the only European scooter operator that makes its own custom scooters. This means that they have their own teams of designers and equipment that oversee every step of the Bolt scooter’s life cycle.

On December 3, 2020, the company announced the launch of the new Bolt 4 scooter, the safest model the industry has ever seen. The Bolt 4 is the first scooter that uses sensors to detect accidents, falls, sharp braking, and unsafe riding patterns. These sensors can trigger audio and visual warnings for riders as well as auto-notify our operations team of any problems.

Bolt in figures:

According to the company, Bolt Food already has over 150 partner restaurants.

As told by Potichny, Bolt Food has free delivery at the time of launch. However, the press service of the company informs that further its cost will be, on average, 10-15% lower than other similar services have.

• During the launch period, food delivery will be available only in the central districts of Kyiv.
• The minimum cost of the order is 100 UAH.
• The average delivery time will be from 20 to 40 minutes.
• The app is already available for download in AppStore and Google Play.

Also, during the quarantine period, only contactless food delivery will be available, and payment will be made with a bank card.

As Taras Potichny said in a comment to AIN.UA, the company is planning to launch the service in several other major cities in 2021.

The company has also started accepting applications from those wishing to become couriers, part of the Bolt Food team, or connect the restaurant. You can find out more information about how to do it on the Bolt Food website.

According to Scroll, this service comes from Georgia. Besides Kyiv, it already operates in Tbilisi and Batumi. The partner of the company, indicated on the website, as well as on each scooter, is the American company Bird. It is unknown what are the terms and conditions of the partnership.

At the same time, the Scroll scooters are the same as those of Bird. For a ride, you need to download and sign up in the Bird application (available for iOS and Android).

The editors of AIN.UA sent requests for comments to each of the companies, but at the time of publication of the piece, did not receive a response.

Several Kyiv residents told AIN.UA that the service is working, and they have already taken a ride around the city with its help. Scooters are completely new, with instructions, as well as an antiseptic.

At the time of writing the piece, the prices are as follows:

• 10 UAH for unlocking
• 4 UAH per minute

The service coverage area includes the central districts of Kyiv. It is still unknown how many scooters are operating.

The editors of AIN.UA have sent a request for more detailed information about the launch and plans to Scroll.

It is already the third service of scooters in Kyiv. Previously, the service from the Estonian company, Bolt, was launched in the city, and a little later – Kiwi. According to the regional manager of Bolt, Taras Potichny, to meet the demand of the city residents, 5,000 to 7,000 scooters are needed. All three companies mostly cover now only the central districts of the city.

How to use the service

To use the service, you need to update the Bolt app to the latest version. If you have no application, you need to install it from Google Play and App Store.

After the application is updated, you should go to the scooter and scan its QR code. You can pay for the ride with your card.

You can find Bolt electric scooters in the center of Kyiv: near metro stations, parks, and other popular spots. The first locations with rentals are at Poshtova Square, Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Bessarabska Square, Golden Gates, and in Mariinsky Park.

How much does it cost?

The price of scooter rental includes unlocking and a one-minute ride. To unlock a scooter, you have to pay ₴29, and a one-minute ride costs ₴4.9. You can rent a scooter for the whole day for ₴600.

After the trip, you can park the scooter in the places marked on the map in the application. If you leave it away from these places, you can get a fine.

All the scooters are equipped with GPS Navigation for obtaining data on their unlocking and parking places. Every morning Bolt staff will collect and transport the scooters for charging. Due to the coronavirus, all of them will be disinfected, and customers will be offered to use hand sanitizer and wear disposable gloves.

Scooters

Bolt company was preparing to launch the scooter rent service back in spring 2020. The test site was launched in 2019 at UNIT.City. But due to quarantine, the launch was postponed until the summer. According to Potichny, the launch should take place in summer in several districts of Kyiv. The company promises to provide a lot of scooters. We have previously told in detail about the service.

Bolt Food

The company is planning to announce the launch date of the Bolt Food service already this June. The service has already negotiated with hundreds of restaurants and is gathering a team and couriers for the launch. The service will be launched in the cities of Ukraine, where Bolt is already present.

According to Potichny, Bolt company feels confident in the Ukrainian market, and the head office will continue to invest in the country.

To recap, previously, Uber Eats announced the closure of the service in Ukraine. Also, we have got the information that the food delivery service Menu.ua stops its operations in Ukraine, and Menu Group company leaves Ukraine.

At First – Test Period

Until the spring of 2020, the Bolt electric scooter rental service will only be available at UNIT.City (you can travel around the park). At first, there will be 20 scooters. The company promises to increase the number in the future.

Following the official launch scooters will be available for rental in the city center, as well as near transport hubs and popular places. The company said that an official launch will take place in the spring of 2020, as soon as it is warm outside again.

Later, Bolt plans to launch scooters in Odesa and Lviv.

How is it going to work

Finding a place to rent a scooter will be possible in the same application used to hail a taxi – Bolt (Android / iOS). An updated version of the affordable electric scooter rental app will appear today.

In order to rent an electric scooter, you will have to do the following:

• Locate it with a map available in Bolt application.
• Unlock it by scanning the QR code via the application.
• After the trip is over, indicate its completion in the application. After that, the money for use will be debited from the card.
• Leave the scooter in a safe place.

In the evening, company employees will collect scooters around the city, charge them and return to their usual locations by morning.

Scooter rental is available only for users who are 18+ years old. To ride a scooter, it is recommended to wear a helmet and use designated bicycle lanes.

Prices

Bolt electric scooters can be used for free in the near future.

The exact cost of using scooters in Kyiv will be published after the official launch of the project. According to a preliminary estimate, the use price will be 1 euro for unlocking and 1-2 UAH for 1 minute of travel.

Usually, the price of renting a scooter includes:

• Unlocking price
• Price per minute of use. If a user intends to use scooter a lot, they can pay for the entire day.

For example, the unlocking price in a number of European countries is 50 cents and 10 cents per minute of travel. Thus, for 10 minutes of the trip, you need to pay 1.50 euros. One full day rental in Tallinn, for example, costs 15 euros.

Bolt Electric Scooters

Currently, the company’s electric scooter fleet comprises of Segway NineBot ES4 scooters with a maximum speed of 25 km/h and a range of up to 45 km.

Why does Bolt want to launch the service

The company claims that every fourth Bolt trip in the world is less than 3 km long. There is no need to call a car for such a small distance because such a distance can be traveled by electric scooter instead.

Earlier Bolt service in Ukraine launched the courier delivery service by drivers. In 2020, in addition to an official launch of electric scooters, the company might also launch food delivery service Bolt Food.

• Now you can order a cab to deliver around the city small parcels or a cargo that fits in the luggage boot of the car.
• The size of the parcel should not exceed 65 x 55 x 40 cm.
• You can deliver everything except money, securities, weapons, drugs, explosives, and other items prohibited by law. In the future, the company also plans to launch the transportation of animals.
• To use the service, you need to select the delivery function in the application, wait for the driver, give him the parcel, and the recipient’s phone number.
• If the recipient does not answer a driver’s call and not pick up a parcel, the courier will take it to a special storage facility where the sender or recipient can pick it up.
• The company representatives note that each parcel will be insured.

The delivery service already works in test mode in Kyiv. Since December 2019, Bolt plans to launch it in all cities of Ukraine, where the company operates – Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, and Odesa.

• More than 50 people will move into the new office. By the end of the year the team will expand to 60 people, says Taras Potichny, Bolt regional manager in Ukraine. According to him, the company is increasing its footprint in Ukraine, which has become the main reason for opening a new large office.
• Bolt already has a local office with several dozen people.
• By the end of the year, the company plans to launch an R&D center, and then it will begin hiring developers.
• A year ago, in June 2018, Bolt service restarted in Ukraine and started operations in several cities: Kyiv, Lviv, and Odesa.
• Taxify has already tried to tap into the Ukrainian market. The first launch of the service in Kyiv took place in 2016 under a franchise agreement with Estonian entrepreneurs.
• The service re-branded in March 2019 with Bolt replacing Taxify. The old name limited the service, putting taxi services at the forefront. In the future, the company intends to increase the number of scooters, add new travel options, support public transport, etc.
• Bolt is a unicorn startup valued at over $1 billion with the total investment exceeding $177 million.

The rates are as follows:

With promo code HELLOODESA, users receive a discount of 60 UAH for the first trip.

Odesa became the fourth city where Bolt has been launched. The service also operates in Kyiv and Kharkiv. Recently, it has started its operation in Lviv as well.