In our previous impact article on Bout, we reported that the company was planning to expand its business activities to France. Indeed, in the summer of 2024, the ‘boat Uber’ service was put to use at the Paris Olympics. We had a chat with Chief Operating Officer Teemu Terttunen from Bout about the company’s latest pursuits.
1. How did your conquest of France start and how is it going now?
Together with the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), we figured that it would be good for us to get involved in developing water transport in Paris, as the city had already been working on improving it for quite some time. We contacted local boat and harbour entrepreneurs and launched a pilot project last year.
We had the French operators visit us here in Helsinki to learn about electric boats for the first time in the summer of 2022. Last summer, we had a faster Swedish-made boat in use, which also impressed them. However, there are lower speed limits on the Seine, so faster travel speeds are out of the question.
In the spring of 2024, we found out that the City of Paris was looking for a boat taxi operator for the Olympics. Bout’s technology was selected as the basis for a white label product that was used to create an application called Taxi Seine Paris for the Parisian tourism agency Paris je t’aime, and local operators were hired to drive the boats. During the Olympics, the taxi boats operated between two significant landmarks: the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. Travelling that distance would take roughly one hour on foot and 90 minutes by car during traffic congestion, but by boat it only takes 20 minutes.
The season is longer in Paris, and cruises operate on the Seine even at Christmas every year, as there is no danger of ice. Next, our plan is to develop the service further in accordance with the client’s wishes.
We just published another project in France at the turn of August and September; a mobile application for a solar-powered ferry that enables passengers to see the route schedules and buy a ticket for the departure of their choosing. It looks like our conquest of France is going to continue on a broader scale very soon!
2. What is happening in the Finnish and Nordic market? What were your hit services here in the summer of 2024?
In Helsinki, the key clients of our services are businesses and groups. The early summer was busy, but July is always a little quieter in terms of business clients due to people’s summer holidays. In addition to taxi boat rides, various experience services have also been a hit: longer-term and tailored service packages in the archipelago containing activities such as a visit to an island – not to forget sauna baths and swimming, of course. Our unique archipelago continues to hold an enormous amount of untapped potential!
In Helsinki, our primary aim is to increase the vitality and accessibility of the archipelago, just like in Stockholm, where we have been collaborating with the City of Stockholm since 2020. At the moment, Stockholm’s strategy includes stretching the archipelago transport season at both ends, in spring and autumn.
In Finland, our other popular locations include Sipoo and Porvoo, as well as places such as Päijänne and other lakes in the Lahti region. So, up here in the North, we have been operating at sea and on lakes alike, and the Seine is our first river city location.
3. How are you promoting responsibility in your operations?
Ecological values have always been an important part of our operations. We believe in the electrification of boating, but in places such as Helsinki, it requires an even more extensive charging network. We will once again deploy an electric boat in Helsinki in September, and we will pilot new concepts together with different accommodation services.
Electric boats will soon be obligatory on the lakes of Europe, and new operators are already required to have electric boats at many lakes. Parisian operators are very interested in the electrification of water transport, and existing boats have already been converted into electric or hybrid ones, so the Seine is being electrified at a rapid pace.
“The importance of networking cannot be overemphasised. Active interaction with operators in the sector both in Finland and abroad is important, as you can never tell what it might yield.” – Teemu Terttunen, Chief Operating Officer of Bout
4. What kind of a message do you have for startups looking to expand internationally?
The importance of networking cannot be overemphasised. Active interaction with operators in the sector both in Finland and abroad is important, as you can never tell what it might yield. I do not know exactly how the EIT originally found us – possibly through Forum Virium – but they approached us and made a direct investment in Bout. Normally, this would have required going through their accelerator first. We later got to enter the accelerator of the world’s largest startup campus, Station F in Paris, which further expanded our networks in France.
Keep a close eye on the development and megatrends of your sector and have unwavering faith in your own thing. For example, the growth of taxi boat transport hinged upon the mainstream first adopting app-reservable taxis in land transport.
Startup entrepreneurship often requires a great deal of guts and persistent work. Every business forms its own story, but the sometimes rapidly changing environment often opens new doors and opportunities.
5. How is Bout’s future looking?
In water transport, the possibilities are almost unlimited. The sector is undergoing drastic changes, and our aim is to seize every opportunity that comes our way. The changes have been evident in our latest international projects, from which we have gained an enormous amount of knowledge and experience.
We have significantly improved the scalability of our products, and we are looking forward to breaking new ground in the future. In many places across the globe, utilising water bodies for passenger transport is the most sensible and efficient solution from many perspectives.
Our work has given us a pleasant amount of challenges, and it has been rewarding to get to develop smart transport solutions together with cities and local businesses. Towards a more sustainable tomorrow!