Mobility giant Bolt has appointed Revolut’s ex-CFO Mikko Salovaara as its new finance chief, as it aims to hit profitability in the next 12 months before targeting an IPO.
The Tallinn-HQ’d startup, which was last valued at €7.4bn when it raised €628m from investors in January 2022, has pinpointed 2025 as the year it expects to go public.
A spokesperson for Bolt tells Sifted: “Going forward, Mikko will be focused on helping us reach and maintain profitability long-term, as well as preparing for IPO.”
Profitability isn’t far off for the company — last week it reported net losses of just €62k for the nine months through to the end of December 2022. Bolt has been betting on scale to reach this milestone — in January, CEO Markus Villig told Sifted that his company "now finally [has] the scale to become profitable”.
Bolt also announced today that it's surpassed 150m customers in over 45 countries.
Revolut finances
Salovaara will take up his new role later this month, based in London. He quit Revolut, currently Europe’s most highly valued private tech company, in May, citing “personal reasons”.
Revolut posted its first annual profit under Salovaara’s tenure — but it wasn't without controversy.
After the neobank missed two deadlines for reporting its 2021 annual accounts, its auditor BDO suggested that 75% of Revolut's 2021 revenues “may be materially misstated”.
Salovaara told Sifted at the time that these issues were down to Revolut’s accounting systems and software not keeping step with the neobank’s pace of growth.
Revolut has appointed an interim CFO, but hasn't announced who will be the full-time replacement for Salovaara.
