Led · Series F · Sep 2023

Blacklane offers premium chauffeur services including Airport Transfers, City-to-City commutes, in-city mobility and Chauffeur-by-the-hour, available pre-booked or on demand. Led by CEO Dr. Jens Wohltorf, the company operates in more than 50 countries with about 400 employees and thousands of chauffeur partners. Its platform serves both business and leisure customers with a network of professional chauffeurs. Blacklane plans to expand operations in its largest market, the U.S., while sharpening its focus on the Middle East and maintaining its European business. In Saudi Arabia the company will launch in several key cities, deploy a fleet of electric vehicles and create local jobs. The firm will also provide training for female and male chauffeurs through its Chauffeur Academies. Blacklane operates a premium chauffeur service with a focus on quality and sustainability, offsetting the carbon footprint of all rides since its 2011 inception. The company reported strong growth, with revenue rising four-fold in 2022 versus the prior year, and it currently employs around 300 people. Blacklane is investing in new service offerings and plans to expand its employee base in Germany and internationally. The firm has explicit sustainability targets: 15% of rides in electric vehicles by the end of 2023 and 50% by 2025. As part of its growth push, Blacklane is integrating its service into partner apps and leveraging strategic partnerships to scale. Blacklane offers chauffeur services for travelers across more than 50 countries, including on-demand city rides, hourly bookings, inter-city commutes, and airport transfers. The company is led by CEO and founder Jens Wohltorf. It recently received a Series F investment described as a double-digit million-dollar round; the precise amount was not disclosed. Blacklane plans to use the funds to accelerate its fleet’s transition to electric vehicles and to develop a retained charging network. The company frames this investment as part of its path to achieving net-zero operations. No other financial metrics or past funding details were provided in the article. Blacklane operates a black‑car chauffeur service and airport-ride business across cities including Berlin, London, Dubai, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Singapore and 16 other cities. Its core product is chauffeur-driven rides; it recently added a sub-30-minute "chauffeur hailing" option in 22 cities and changed pricing to be more competitive on shorter trips. The company reported monthly revenues dropped 99% after the COVID-19 pandemic and showed a net loss of about $18 million in 2018. Blacklane has raised around $100 million to date, including roughly $45 million in 2018. It is using its latest financing to expand sustainable travel initiatives (including a majority stake in Jaguar‑hatched electric service Havn) and to broaden more flexible riding options. The company said the funding will help fast-track innovation while avoiding layoffs as travel recovers. Blacklane operates a platform for high-end limo and professional car services, focusing on airport and medium-length journeys. Its footprint covers 250 cities and 500 airports across 50 countries, and it plans to expand to over 300 cities with major growth targeted in the Middle East and Africa. Typical rides average 35 kilometres and take 45–60 minutes; the company reports driver capacity utilization of 60–80%, versus about 20% for traditional limo services, which it says improves unit economics. Blacklane acquired concierge service Solve at the end of last year and is expanding into concierge offerings while piloting electric vehicles and exploring autonomous-vehicle opportunities. CEO Jens Wohltorf said the company has "very healthy margin and unit economics" and could be profitable but is reinvesting profits into growth. Founded in 2011, Blacklane has raised over $80 million to date.

Participated · Series C · Jul 2014

Quandoo offers Quandoo Premium, a cloud-based reservation and inventory management system that runs on Android tablets and is designed to be intuitive for restaurant staff. The product manages restaurant inventory in real time and positions itself as an alternative to incumbents by not relying on fees from converting a restaurant's own website traffic into reservations. In the year and a half since launch, Quandoo says it has built a network of more than 3,000 partner restaurants across eight countries and served 1.5 million diners. The company plans to use new financing to expand its presence in Germany, Austria and Italy across Europe and to launch in APAC and Latin America. Founders Philipp Magin (CEO) and Ronny Lange were part of the team that founded CityDeal, which was acquired by Groupon in 2010. Quandoo targets markets with low adoption of cloud booking platforms, seeking greenfield opportunity as reservations shift online. Quandoo operates a marketplace and provides reservation and yield-management systems for restaurants. The platform offers modules including a reservation management system, tools for utilization control and a cash-register system. It helps local businesses acquire new customers and maintain existing ones. Launched in January 2013 and based in Berlin, the company is led by CEO Philipp Magin and a founding leadership team. It is available in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey and the Netherlands and is used at over 1,000 restaurants. The company is hiring.