Buser, a Brazilian ride-sharing startup known in the market as the “Uber of buses”, raised a BRL 700 million Series C round led by the growth equity fund focused on social impact LGT Lightrock and following by funds that have already invested in the platform before, such as Softbank, monashees, Valor Capital Group, Globo Ventures and Canary.
Buser also announced a BRL 1 billion investment plan over the next two years, focused on expanding its service portfolio to boost its operation in Brazil. The startup plans involve four new segments: a trip marketplace, cargo transport, bus financing and urban transport.
“We are preparing for the resumption of tourism and to increase our passengers base, travel and partnerships. We are also going to focus on diversifying our business, such as urban passenger transport, a more concentrated market than interstate and intermunicipal transport,” Marcelo Abritta, Buser’s co-founder and CEO, said.
The BRL 1 billion will be allocated to expand operations throughout Brazil (BRL 400 million); to finance buses from Buser partners (BRL 200 million); for marketing to attract new users (BRL 200 million); for promotions to build customer loyalty (BRL 150 million) and to improve the embarkation and disembarkation structure (BRL 50 million).
The expansion of the portfolio began in 2020, when Buser launched Buser Passagens, a marketplace for bus travel in partnership with companies that operate on highways. According to the startup, the service already has partnerships with 40 companies and transports an average of 3,000 passengers per week.
In May of this year, Buser also started its cargo transport operations on buses with Buser Encomenda, a B2B solution for logistics, e-commerce, industry and small carrier platforms. The focus is on small and medium-sized companies that do not have their own transport; the solution also optimizes the capacity of the bus’s luggage compartments.
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New investment fund for Latin America
Used to investing in companies with large-scale solutions to structural problems, such as the road transport service, LGT Lightrock, which led Buser’s C Series, is raising its second investment fund for Latin America. The objective is to raise a BRL 1 billion fund to co-invest with other group vehicles. Assets such as Creditas and Buser will be the first seed assets of this new fund.
