Bloomberg Línea — The Brazilian road transportation market generates an estimated R$15 billion per year. When factoring in related services such as cargo, financial solutions, and insurance, the total reaches R$30 billion. Despite being fragmented into state or regional companies, the sector is primed for consolidation.
A digital-native player aims to lead that transformation. That’s the goal for Marcelo Abritta, co-founder and CEO of Buser, a city-to-city mobility startup that has grown into the industry’s largest player.
“We’re at a stage where we’ve started exploring M&As [mergers and acquisitions] and other business verticals to accelerate growth,” Abritta told Bloomberg Línea in his first interview in years, following the company’s renewed expansion strategy supported by funds such as SoftBank, Lightrock, Valor Capital, Globo Ventures, Monashees, and Canary, among others.
A graduate of ITA (Technological Institute of Aeronautics), Abritta co-founded the company in June 2017 with Marcelo Vasconcellos. Today, Buser has reached an operational and financial milestone, generating annual revenue exceeding US$100 million and an operating profit of R$100 million, following roughly 20% growth in 2024. The company has also been generating cash for the past 18 months.
According to Abritta, Buser’s revenue is comparable to traditional intercity transportation players such as Águia Branca, a nearly 80-year-old company operating across the Southeast and Northeast regions of Brazil.
Currently, the company serves approximately 12 million active passengers across more than 250 cities with its charter service, in addition to many more through its ticket marketplace.
For 2025, the company expects to grow its top line by 50%, reaching US$150 million. “We’re not big yet. We will grow 30 to 50 times our current size,” Abritta said, emphasizing the company’s potential.
“We will pursue M&A opportunities with incumbent companies. We’ve already proven that we can operate these routes more efficiently than existing providers,” he added.
The plan is to apply Buser’s technology-driven model to acquired companies, lowering ticket prices while increasing demand and occupancy—without sacrificing margins or operational results, Abritta explained.
To spearhead this initiative, Buser hired Rodolfo Juliani as Director of Strategy and New Business. Juliani, formerly of Lightrock—a British fund that has invested in Buser since its Series C round—is tasked with identifying M&A targets and has built what the company describes as a “robust” pipeline.
Ongoing discussions include deals with players comparable in size to Buser, as well as smaller firms, according to Abritta.
“Our network’s average occupancy rate throughout the year is 80%, while traditional operators run closer to 60%. This demonstrates how much efficiency we can bring,” he said.
Beyond the business model, Buser attributes this efficiency advantage to its technology platform, which leverages machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Over time, it has improved by aggregating data from millions of trips.
“Almost our entire network is now autonomously planned. Not only that—we’ve developed a system that determines optimal ticket pricing, departure times, stop locations, and demand levels,” Abritta stated.
Buser’s reservation management system is fully digital, featuring dynamic networks and pricing that match supply and demand to lower ticket costs. Boarding and drop-off points are decentralized across cities—São Paulo alone has around 40, including prime locations like Faria Lima Avenue.
Buser’s push into M&As coincides with increased interest in Brazil’s intercity transportation market from international players like Germany’s Flixbus. Meanwhile, Uber launched Shuttle, a chartered bus service between São Paulo and Guarulhos, which could signal broader ambitions in the sector.
Shift from Air Travel
On the organic growth front, much of Buser’s expansion is driven by the high season, which runs from December 2024 through Carnival. The company expects to transport up to 1.5 million passengers during this period—a 10% increase.
Growth is occurring in two primary ways: increasing frequency on existing routes and expanding into new cities, Abritta noted.
Another key factor is passengers switching from air travel due to rising airfare costs. “We’re growing on every route where we compete with airlines,” he said.
A particularly fast-growing segment is Buser’s “super premium” buses, which offer a high-end experience with beds, larger screens, and even onboard attendants, or “road hostesses.” Ticket prices for this service can reach R$500.
“We’re seeing an influx of high-income passengers, as indicated by the credit cards used for payments—brands like BTG Black and XP Infinite. These are customers who likely would have chosen air travel before,” Abritta said.
Reaching Profitability
Buser’s profitable operations today are the result of a business model that has remained largely the same since its inception but has become more efficient through technological investments and cost-cutting measures.
Like many startups, Buser faced financial pressures beginning in 2022 as global interest rates rose. The company responded by streamlining operations to achieve efficiency gains and breakeven—a key goal for most startups at the time.
By early 2023, these efforts had started to bear fruit, and cash flow turned positive in the second half of the year.
“When we decided to prioritize efficiency in early 2022, we had 550 direct employees. Today, we have 240—yet our operations are larger than they were back then,” Abritta said. “Many teams had more staff than necessary because we initially planned to double in size every year.”
By early 2024, it became clear that the company was financially stable and could shift its focus back to growth. A renewed investment push has since strengthened operations and laid the groundwork for further expansion.
A Perennial Business Model
Despite market fluctuations, Buser’s core business model has remained largely unchanged over the years. What has evolved, Abritta explained, is the company’s decision-making approach—prioritizing caution in tough times after a period of heavy investment and capital burn.
“In the past, we spent too much money without enough caution,” he admitted. At a time of abundant venture capital, Buser—like many startups—sought to accelerate growth, raising R$700 million in a Series C round led by LGT Lightrock.
The funding was largely spent on marketing, both online and offline, as well as promotional discounts to attract passengers in new cities.
“We decided to halt service in any city where we couldn’t expect to break even within six months,” Abritta said. “This obviously streamlined our network.”
Looking Back on the Early Days
“The investments in cities we withdrew from were lost, which is unfortunate. The playbook was sound, and we would have eventually reached breakeven—it just would have taken longer,” he reflected. Buser’s focus on efficiency today is reminiscent of its early days.
The idea for the company was born when Abritta was planning his wedding in November 2016 in Arraial d’Ajuda, Bahia.
While helping relatives from Minas Gerais book last-minute tickets, he realized that renting a chartered bus would cost about half as much as buying individual round-trip tickets from traditional bus operators.
“In our early years, we were also more frugal—simply because we had fewer resources,” he recalled. But it didn’t take long for venture capital investors to recognize Buser’s market potential.
Within its first year, the startup secured a US$500,000 seed round from Canary, Yellow Ventures, and Fundação Estudar. The following year, Series A funding came from Valor Capital and Monashees. In 2019, SoftBank and Globo Ventures led its Series B round.
Along the way, Buser faced legal challenges from traditional intercity transportation companies defending their market share, as well as regulatory uncertainties.
Today, however, its relationship with regulators is described as constructive, with Brazil’s federal land transport agency (ANTT) acknowledging Buser’s operations as legal.
Looking ahead, Abritta believes improving passenger access to major bus terminals in large cities could enhance the travel experience.
On the business side, Buser is also considering reviving collective bus purchases, which could help smaller operators gain the pricing advantages that larger incumbents currently enjoy.
