Chauffeur firm Blacklane looks to ‘double down’ on London after Saudi cash injection
Luxury chauffeur service Blacklane is looking to “double down” on London after announcing its largest-ever funding round late last year.
The Berlin-based firm, which counts Mercedes-Benz and the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)’s Tasaru Mobility among its investors, raised £53.5m in October amid long-running reports of a possible Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Blacklane’s airport transfer service has proven popular among the UK capital’s business elite, but chief executive Dr Jens Wohltorf told City PM this was “not enough for us”.
Wohltorf wants to see Blacklane used as a “day-to-day transportation option” by Londoners. “There are a lot of interesting routes outside of London to nearby cities, but there is also a lot of momentum within the City that we want to serve.“
This would include trips between the office and restaurants late at night, he explained, or Blacklane’s by the hour booking for those looking to intermittently hop between meetings.
While Blacklane will never be a “mass market” provider, according to Wohltorf, such an expansion would bring it into greater competition with its larger ride-hailing rivals, Uber and Bolt.
Speculation has swirled in recent years over a possible listing by the German company, with reports in 2023 Blacklane was in the “very early stages” of weighing an IPO. The October funding round put its valuation at around £420m.
Wohltorf though said a decision on a listing had yet to be made. He did not rule out London, Blacklane’s second biggest market after the US, as a future destination, but said he would also consider its base country Germany and the New York Stock Exchange.
The priority as of now, however, is “drilling down” on its current markets. Alongside London, Wohltorf is also keen to expand Blacklane’s presence in the Middle East and North America, where New York, Miami and LA remain particularly strong markets.
The likes of Dubai and Saudi Arabia have long been popular destinations for corporate trips, but the latter has also seen a surge in tourism in recent years as Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud looks to open the territory to the world.
“There is a lot of travel, especially business travel, between Dubai and Riyadh… In markets like Saudi Arabia, transportation is not well developed enough yet, especially not reliable and consistent transportation, so this is for us an ideal market to make a difference for travellers.”
Wohltorf explained Blacklane has been in the process of training up female chauffeurs, after the Saudi ban on women driving was lifted in 2018. “That’s part of Blacklane’s value set, that we are pushing our beliefs on the world,” he said.