Istvan Haidekker is Country Manager at BlaBlaCar for Croatia, Hungary, Romania and Serbia. Previously he co-founded AutoHop, a regional ridesharing platform, acquired by BlaBlaCar. Istvan is coming to Startup Grind Bucharest to tell us about his journey as an entrepreneur and life after joining BlaBlaCar. He is interested in ways he can make more efficient use of natural resources to protect the planet and save personal resources – TIME. BlaBlaCar announced a $200 million Series D investment round led by Insight Venture Partners and Lead Edge Capital with participation from Vostok New Ventures. The company was founded in 2006 by Frédéric Mazzella (CEO), Francis Nappez (CTO), and Nicolas Brusson (COO). The service connects people looking to travel long distances with car owners already going the same way, so both can save money by sharing the cost of their journey. Currently, BlaBlaCar operates in about 17 countries, including France, Germany,  Hungary, Russia, Spain, and India. This investment follows a €125,000 Series A led by ISAI (2011), a $10 million Series B led by Accel Partners (2012), and a $100 million Series C led by Index Ventures (2014).