Index-backed BlaBlaCar buys Earlybird’s Carpooling

The businesses will be integrated into BlaBlaCar's existing service. Carpooling's Munich office will become BlaBlaCar's 11th regional office and will work with the company's current German operations in Hamburg. The original founding teams of both Carpooling and Autohop will continue to run their respective companies.

BlaBlaCar acquired Ukraine-based Podorozhniki in February last year, which was merged with its new owner. BlaBlaCar established a new office in Moscow as part of the expansion.

Previous funding
Earlybird Venture Capital injected seed funding into Carpooling in August 2009, followed by a second round of funding in July 2011.

Isai and Cabiedes & Partners invested €1.25m in BlaBlaCar in June 2010, with Isai providing the majority of the equity. Isai's contribution was the maiden investment to be made from its first fund, the €65m Isai Developpement vehicle.

Accel Partners led a €7.5m series-B round for the company in January 2012, with participation from Isai and Cabiedes.

In July last year Index Ventures led a $100m series-C round in the company, with participation from Accel, Isai and Lead Edge Capital. The funding was earmarked for international expansion.

Company
Founded in 2001, Carpooling is a long-distance ridesharing community, operating in Germany as mitfahrgelegenheit.de. Headquartered in Munich, it also operates in Austria, Switzerland, Poland, France, Italy, Spain, the UK and Greece.

AutoHop launched in Budapest in 2012 and now operates in Romania, Serbia and Croatia.

Founded in 2006 as Covoiturage.fr, BlaBlaCar is a long-distance journey-sharing company. Headquartered in Paris, it operates in 18 countries across Europe. The company's website and mobile app enable its 8 million users to share the cost of long-distance car journeys by matching drivers with spare seats to people making the same journey.

People
Markus Barnikel is CEO of Carpooling. Frédéric Mazzella and Nicolas Brusson are co-founders of BlaBlaCar.

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