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Flo Devellennes

CEO and Co-founder, Poparide

Flo Devellennes is the CEO and Co-founder of Poparide, a city-to-city carpooling platform based in Vancouver, Canada.1 He founded the company in December 2014 with the mission to make travel more social, affordable, and sustainable.13

Flo's journey with Poparide began in 2010 when he moved to Vancouver from Europe.13 While driving to Whistler for skiing, he often picked up hitchhikers, which inspired him to create HitchWhistler, a website that would later evolve into Poparide.23

Under Flo's leadership, Poparide has grown significantly:

  • The platform now has over 1,000,000 members across Canada.3
  • It has helped users share over 120 million km, saving more than 20,000 metric tons of carbon emissions.1
  • The company employs a team of 25 people across Canada, Europe, and Mexico.2

Flo is passionate about preserving the planet for future generations and believes in building sustainable businesses that positively impact communities.1 He has shared his entrepreneurial journey and vision for sustainable transportation in a TEDx talk at TEDxWhistler.2

Prior to Poparide, Flo held positions such as Director of New Media at Cvent QuickMobile and SEO Developer at Oban International.1 He holds a Bachelor of Science in Multimedia & Digital Systems from the University of Sussex and a Masters in Visual Arts, Multimedia Design from Université Laval.1

Highlights

Apr 23 · linkedin

Today we're publishing the first ever Poparide e-book to celebrate a big big milestone: we've reached one million members in Canada!

Our e-book showcases the tremendous impact carpooling has on our communities, and it's the first time we share proprietary insights from member surveys, member data, and market research. There's a lot to unpack, and we're very excited to share our impact with the world.

From countless stories of people finding jobs, housing, and new friends, we know our impact is real. In many cases, Poparide is the only way for people to get around. For them, sharing rides in cars has become an essential service, creating hope and opportunity for people living far from urban centres who are often forgotten.

It's humbling to be part of this impact journey as a founder, and to witness the growth of what started as a small hitchhiking website into the largest carpooling community in the country, which, just in 2023, grew by 95% and helped people share over 67 million km together in cars.

And we're just getting started. We've now set our next big objective: to fill one million empty seats per year in Canada by the end of 2025. Let's go!

A big thank-you to everyone on the team who participated in this e-book, including Niklas Mey, Samantha Lewis, Cheryl Loh and Phil Langlois, as well as our partners for contributing to the content, Caleb McIntyre, Karly Upshall, Grant Millar, Sandra Phillips, Venkatesh Gopal, Jacob Greig, Heili Toome, Karly Nygaard-Petersen, Jerome Mayaud, Stephen Miller, Esteban Sanchez, Kavan Kumar, Wendy Van Puymbroeck, Erin Toop and David Cooper. We couldn't have done this without you.

Oct 3 · linkedin

About 12 years ago, I moved to Canada with some aspirations for a new life with better career prospects. I had no idea that this move would lead me to start my own entrepreneurship journey and one day, give me the opportunity to share it on a TEDx stage in front of 300 people.

So, here it is, my story of building Poparide from a small passion project into an impact-driven platform with nearly one million members across Canada. I hope to inspire others to be vulnerable, take a leap of faith to pursue their own journey, and spend their precious time on trying to make the world a slightly better place.

I'm so grateful to have been given the opportunity to share my story and I want to thank the whole TEDxWhistler team for all the coaching and support they provided in this journey. Thank you, Paul Meen Park, William Chao, Lydia Chao and Anoop Virk, I couldn't have done this without you!

If you're interested in giving your own TEDx talk, feel free to reach out, I'd love to share my experience with you.

Related Questions

What inspired Flo Devellennes to start Poparide?
How has Poparide impacted the environment since its inception?
What challenges did Flo Devellennes face while building Poparide?
How does Poparide compare to other carpooling platforms?
What are Flo Devellennes' future plans for Poparide?
Flo Devellennes
Flo Devellennes, photo 1
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Location

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada