European bank finances Turkish bus-ticketing app
by DAILY SABAH WITH AAThe European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has provided $4 million in equity financing to Turkish online bus-ticketing service oBilet.
The EBRD equity financing will support oBilet's growth while also encouraging the development of highly innovative technology-based companies in Turkey, the bank said in a statement Monday.
The oBilet app, available on mobile and desktop devices, offers bus travel options, convenient digital booking for bus rides and seat reservations, and allows users to manage their journeys online. The company is currently expanding into air travel ticketing.
With the said financing, the amount of total investment oBilet has received in the last year has reached $10 million.
The bus-ticketing company was established in 2012 by two Turkish industrial engineering students, Ali Yılmaz and Yiğit Gürocak.
In 2015, it received investments from a venture capital firm Earlybird and the Turkish angel investor Aslanoba Capital.
As a leading institutional investor in Turkey, the EBRD has invested over 11.5 billion euros (some $13 billion) in almost 300 projects in the country since 2009, including investments last year alone totaling some $1.2 billion and $621.5 million in 2019. The overwhelming majority of these are in the private sector.