Being one of Finland’s fastest-growing startups, Bahn Express’ platform and logistics solution challenges trucking companies’ monopoly on car transports by cutting transit time for used cars, leasing returns, and one-way rentals from weeks to days. With the new funds, the company will rapidly expand its presence across key EU markets, including Germany, Sweden, Poland, and Denmark, with new markets to follow.
Our portfolio company, Bahn Express, an automotive logistics platform for car transport, has announced the successful completion of its five-million-euro funding round. The funds will be used to establish local teams in new European markets, starting with Germany, Denmark, and Poland. Additionally, the company is planning significant hiring for its Helsinki HQ to improve and expand its offering. We participated in the investment round led by node.vc, along with Innovestor, and a syndicate of angel investors, including founders and key employees of Wolt, Swappie, and Smartly.
Car dealerships, rental agencies, and leasing companies lose significant funds yearly. It can take as much as 40 days from ordering a car until it is on the road, with costs running up each day. The standard transport model involves loading cars on trucks in the origin country and transporting them through a series of hubs and modes of transport, a process that takes weeks, because trucks also have to wait until they are full to start the transport. Bahn Express cuts that time to mere days by connecting automotive players with a network of hundreds of local freelance drivers to transport cars to their destinations, while also offering additional services like quality inspections. Everything is managed through the company’s platform, meaning dealerships and fleet managers can request transport at the click of a button and track progress in real time.
For automotive players, shorter transportation times mean faster turnover and lower financial risk, while ensuring cars arrive at the right time for further distribution. Bahn Express aims to cut transport times from the usual 10–30 days to just 2–5 days, reducing costs by hundreds of Euros per vehicle and improving dealership stock turnover by 30%. For the end customer, the short time and seamless process mean the time between ordering and receiving their new vehicle is shorter, improving the customer experience and ensuring they have access to a car when they need it.
The automotive industry is one of the most high-tech and archaic industries at the same time. While innovation in manufacturing is booming, the processes for getting cars to customers haven’t changed much in decades, with cars still being shipped across Europe on trucks. With this investment round, we can rapidly scale our innovative solution to European markets, where we know the demand for more seamless processes is high.
Matias Blomberg, Co-Founder and CEO of Bahn Express
The car logistics market in Europe is worth seven billion euros and is largely dominated by trucking companies. While several companies offer local transportation within individual EU countries, Bahn Express has an international-first mindset, which offers unique import and export capabilities in addition to local services.
When we first invested in the company, we made a heavy bet on the team. After sharing this journey with them for a year, we have witnessed that their execution is second to none and they have proven this with an exeptional growth.
Reima Linnanvirta, Partner at Trind Ventures
Having followed the Bahn Express team for over a year, it’s clear that their combination of discipline, speed, and customer focus is turning into exceptional execution. Their platform tackles a large bottleneck in European vehicle logistics and is set up to scale faster than the competition. When you meet the team in Helsinki, you really sense a team gearing up for its next phase of growth. We’re confident this is just the start.
Daniela Sjunnesson, Partner at node.vc
The company’s long-term vision is to give every person access to any car, anywhere, at any time, with two-day delivery. The company is already partnered with major automotive players like Kamux, Autohuset Vestergaard, and Aampere, another of our portfolio companies.
Bahn Express has really boosted our logistics operations. Their transport speed is in a league of its own, and the seamless integration into our existing systems means our teams can use Bahn Express without changing how they work. It’s rare to find a partner that combines this level of speed with such a smooth day-to-day experience.
Niko Schmidt, CGO & Co-Founder at Aampere
Acknowledging that each market is different, the company has also tailored its services to demand, offering predominantly rental- and leasing-related services in Poland and Germany, while focusing on the import of new and used cars to dealerships in Denmark and Finland.
Anyone expanding to new markets will get burned if they try to copy/paste their approach in one market to the next. That’s why we have hired local experts in each country, and these new funds will be used to expand those into fully operational local units that know their market and can tailor services to the needs of their customers.
Matias Blomberg, Co-Founder and CEO of Bahn Express
Bahn Express was founded in 2024 in Helsinki, Finland, by Matias Blomberg and Co-Founder Leevi Jäkälä. Since then, the company has expanded to 30 employees, with headquarters in Helsinki and offices in Copenhagen and Berlin.