French on-demand car service startup Virtuo raises €78.5M; aims to electrify 100% of its fleet by 2030

Paris-based Virtuo, an on-demand car service startup, announced that it has raised $96M (approx €78.5M) in its Series C round of funding. This round includes a combination of funding.

The amount of €50M capital was led by AXA Venture Partners with participation from Bpifrance through their Large Venture funds, Alpha Intelligence Capital and H14. In addition, existing investors, including Balderton Capital, Iris Capital, and Raise Ventures, also invested in this round. In addition, a pan-European asset-based financing of €30M was also granted from Natixis and several members of the Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne Group to support Virtuo’s fleet development.

Virtuo is on a mission to provide the best car hire experience that makes owning a car unnecessary, freeing you and cities from the burden of car ownership. Including the current round, the company has raised a total of $100M in funding since its inception.

New generation of car rental

Founded in 2016 by Karim Kaddoura and Thibault Chassagne, Virtuo’s aim is to reinvent car rental through their mobile app by allowing users to unlock and start their Virtuo rental car with no paperwork, rental counters, and queues.

With its car on-demand service, Virtuo wants to give back all the freedoms of the car to city dwellers without the burden on cities and the planet. Virtuo is available with both a consumer offering as well as their Virtuo for Business service, where businesses get exclusive corporate benefits.

As of May 2021, Virtuo is operating in four countries, including France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. In addition, it is also present in 18 major European cities, including Paris, London, Manchester, Barcelona, and Madrid.

Shifting gears to sustainable mobility

Virtuo claims that its aim is to revolutionise the car rental industry by providing a 100 per cent digital app experience to its new generation of drivers who are urbanites from major European cities across its regions of France, the UK, and Spain.

Karim Kaddoura and Thibault Chassagne, Virtuo’s co-founders, mention, “Our ambition for Virtuo and our car on-demand service is to reinvent our relationship with cars. To provide all the benefits that cars can offer while using technology to remove the physical burden. We believe you should be able to access a car the same way you stream music or films: the car should appear on demand when you need it but disappear from sight when you don’t.”

And to fulfil this ambition, the company launched their new delivery service, Virtuo Delivered, wherein users can get their Virtuo car delivered and collected from any chosen address. The service has already been rolled out across London and recently launched in Paris and Madrid.

How will the funds be utilised?

The proceeds from this round will help Virtuo further advance its technology and launch new services that will position its car on-demand service as a key alternative to car ownership. Besides the development of its app, the funds will also allow the company to accelerate its European expansion and the electrification of the fleet.

The funding comes off the back of Virtuo being selected as part of the French Tech 120 programme – a development scheme designed to support the best French scale-ups with the potential to become global giants.

International expansion & electrification

Virtuo reports that the capital from the current round will give them an opportunity to accelerate its presence in Europe – the company will expand its service in Milan this month and launch in Germany by 2022 to cover about ten markets by 2025. 

In addition to that, the company is also looking to accelerate the electrification of its fleet. Virtuo is aiming to electrify 50 per cent of its fleet by 2025 and 100 per cent by 2030. The company also reported that it has been offsetting 100 per cent of its carbon footprint since the 1st of January 2021, contributing to local clean energy and certified projects in Europe.

Virtuo has already partnered up with Hyundai in France and has integrated Kona Electric in its fleet as part of its revenue-sharing business model. This funding round will allow Virtuo to focus on a new objective: conquer one million active customers across Europe by 2025.