Amsterdam’s DFF Ventures leads €3M investment round in Italy’s bus marketplace Fleequid: Know more

Italy-based Fleequid, an online marketplace for buying and selling used buses, has raised €3M in Seed funding. Fleequid will use the funds to grow its presence in Europe, increase its workforce, and improve its auction platform. 

The company’s goal is to speed up the rollout across the region and advance its technology, allowing businesses to trade buses through a simple and fast online process.

Investors supporting Fleequid

The funding round was led by Amsterdam’s DFF Ventures with additional backing from Silence VC, FJ Labs, and angel investor Jack Greco, who co-founded ACV Auctions.

These investors bring experience in online marketplaces and vehicle resale, supporting Fleequid’s international growth strategy. This is DFF’s second investment in Italy and the first by Silence VC and FJ Labs in the country.

Maarten Engelen, Partner at DFF, says, “We look for sharp founders tackling big problems in under-digitised markets. The Battaglia brothers are insiders who’ve decided to disrupt their own industry, and they’ve done it with the kind of execution and grit we love to back.”

“Fleequid is not just a better way to trade buses. It’s the start of a new operating system for the entire sector.”

Streamlining bus resales across Europe

In Europe, more than 100,000 buses are sold each year. Despite the volume, the resale process has remained offline and spread out across many channels. Buses often move from Northern Europe to Southern Europe and are sold several times during their use. Countries such as Italy, Poland, Germany, and Spain rely on these vehicles due to their transport needs.

However, most bus owners lack clear ways to sell or find buyers. Many turn to brokers, who work within a closed system that often includes hidden fees.

This is the issue Filippo and Federico Battaglia aimed to address when they founded Fleequid in late 2024. With experience from their family’s bus trading business, they identified a way to make the sales process more open and structured.

Fleequid offers a single platform where sellers can list buses and buyers can take part in online auctions. Each listing includes a detailed set of information: images, video, condition checks, and technical reports, all reviewed by Fleequid’s team.

The company also manages the full transaction process, including payment, ownership transfer, and delivery.

Co-founder Filippo Battaglia says, “We’ve been in this world for 13 years. We know the players, we know the pain points, and we know how much value is lost in the current system. We built Fleequid to change that.”

“We used to say no to 90 per cent of buses at Basco because we didn’t have a scalable way to resell them. Now, we can say yes to all of them.”

In its early months, Fleequid sold several hundred buses. Buyers submitted bids from countries including Ghana, Romania, Iraq, and EU markets like Italy, Poland, and Bulgaria. The demand for a more reliable and streamlined system extends beyond national borders.