This article is a part of Poland Unpacked. Weekly intelligence for decision-makers
The car relocation startup, which has been operating in Poland for six months, aims to acquire 100 clients and complete 20,000 transfers by the end of the year. “If we succeed, Poland will become the fastest-growing market in our industry globally,” says Michał Borek, Managing Director of Flovi in Poland.
Flovi arrived in Poland from Scandinavia just half a year ago. In January, XYZ reported that the company had secured its first corporate client. The startup offers a vehicle relocation service that, until now, did not exist on the Polish market. This innovative solution – heavily based on AI – has the potential to win over the industry.
“I believe that any company operating in a marketplace model, trying to change or challenge the status quo in a given segment, and not using AI, is at a disadvantage,” says Michał Borek, Managing Director of Flovi in Poland.
Flovi’s service is primarily aimed at car dealers, leasing companies, and automotive businesses that need to transport vehicles from point A to point B. The process can be completed quickly, without the need to wait for a traditional tow truck. Orders are placed via a dedicated platform that connects drivers willing to relocate vehicles.
Poland becomes Flovi’s third market
Poland is the third market – after Finland and Sweden – chosen by the startup’s leadership. As Michał Borek explains, the Finnish and Swedish markets are similar, while Poland was selected due to the absence of comparable services. In more developed markets such as Spain and France, similar companies already operate, including Hiflow and Driiveme. In the United States, a comparable service is offered by the large player Driver.
“In Poland, we had no direct competition. There are, of course, companies offering similar services, but not identical ones. They also do not solve the same problem we address – acting as a logistics intermediary and reducing costs so that the client pays only for a one-way trip, rather than the return journey,” explains Michał Borek.
He adds that although Flovi has been present in Poland for only six months, the market has already exceeded the startup’s expectations. The company is currently growing at a rate of 50% month on month – significantly faster than initially projected. The most difficult hurdle is the first one: educating customers on what exactly the service is and how it differs from a traditional tow truck.
“The most challenging moment is completing the first 10 relocations for a client. After that, reaching 100 monthly transfers takes significantly less time than overcoming the initial barrier of entry and understanding the model. Growth is stepwise. So far, we have acquired more than 30 clients, and none of them – after completing at least 10 transfers – has dropped the service,” Mr. Borek says.
The Polish market is relatively small. It consists of approximately 300–400 entities potentially relevant to Flovi. The company currently works with around 10% of the segment and ultimately aims to capture a quarter of the market. Flovi also handles cross-border and intra-city transfers.
“Our goal is to acquire the first 100 clients, and we are giving ourselves until the end of the year to achieve this. We also aim to complete around 20,000 transfers in our first year of operations. If we succeed, Poland will become the fastest-growing market in our industry globally,” our interlocutor says.
In Poland, Flovi has access to a pool of more than 1,500 drivers registered on its platform. This number is increasing by an average of 300 new users per month. Michał Borek adds that these drivers undergo a detailed verification process and are continuously monitored.
Car relocation, but not by tow truck
The service ordering process is powered by Flovi’s artificial intelligence platform. An algorithm determines the fastest and most cost-efficient route for relocating a vehicle. Partner drivers, who use a dedicated app, then see available assignments and choose which ones to accept. When collecting a vehicle for relocation, they take photos to confirm its technical condition. They then drive the car personally to the designated destination. Upon arrival, they carry out another inspection. This automation accelerates the entire process.
“Most relocations are one-way trips. As a result, we do not incur the cost of an employee returning from point A to point B. Because we have a large network of partner drivers and clients, we minimize empty mileage. This allows us to remain competitive and maintain margins that support business growth,” emphasizes Michał Borek.
As he points out, Flovi can therefore serve as a faster and cheaper alternative to traditional tow trucks.
“A tow truck typically needs several days – seven days is the minimum – to complete such a transport at an appropriate price. We deliver a vehicle in an average of 23 hours. While a tow truck costs around PLN 2–4 (EUR 0.46–0.93) per kilometer depending on the route and demand, we are able to reduce that to approximately PLN 0.90–0.99 (EUR 0.21–0.23) per kilometer. This is supported by our AI engine, which builds the logistics network,” says Michał Borek.
He acknowledges, however, that there are situations where a tow truck is the only viable option – for example, when a car is not roadworthy.
“Tow trucks are our competitors in terms of how vehicle logistics and costs are perceived, but we do not see them as a necessary evil that we would want to eliminate from the industry. There are situations where driving the car is not possible – for instance, if it is broken down. Flovi is most efficient when we deliver one or two vehicles within a short time window. Our operational limit is transporting four or more vehicles,” says the Managing Director of Flovi.
“Uberization” of services becomes increasingly common
Flovi is not a startup in the conventional sense of the word. The company was founded in Finland in 2008 as a small, family-owned logistics business. As Michał Borek admits, it took some time for Flovi to fully understand customer needs. A turning point in the company’s development came during the pandemic.
“Dealers increasingly relied on external services and realized that certain processes can be improved through automation, digitalization, and by fully outsourcing logistics to various types of companies. This was further reinforced by the implementation of AI and other processes that reduce the final cost for used-car dealers,” says Michał Borek.
According to the company’s leadership, Flovi’s platform can be compared to the operating model of Uber. However, Flovi operates in the B2B segment – business-to-business transactions – whereas Uber functions in the B2C space. Flovi connects transport routes into logistics networks and then scales them.
“In Finland, we expanded our services to include so-called home delivery, as well as service-related transport. We would collect cars from dealers or end customers – for example, those who had leasing contracts with a given leasing company. We picked them up from their homes and delivered them to service centers, where they were repaired, and then returned them to the final customer,” explains Flovi’s Managing Director for Poland.
Expert's perspective
Algorithms are outperforming humans
However, this does not mean that all innovation must be technological or based on artificial intelligence. Innovation is not exclusively technological; it is also process-driven and human. Sometimes, innovation means stopping doing what everyone else is doing – rather than necessarily doing more with some advanced technology.
We are still a long way from autonomous, driverless vehicles. But it will happen. Wherever route planning and driver working-time regulations are involved, algorithms outperform humans.
Route planning and optimization are already increasingly common today. Not everywhere – some players in the freight transport industry still do it on paper. But those who algorithmize the planning stage are the ones who prevail.
Price matters more than time
Michał Borek admits that the Polish market differs significantly from the Scandinavian one. In Poland, price still plays a greater role than time.
“A client would rather pay 10 or 15% less and wait a few days for the car to be transported. For this reason, we face a challenge we had not encountered before in Scandinavia: attitudes toward toll roads and motorways. We very often receive requests from clients to use toll-free routes. We were not prepared for this,” says our interlocutor.
The algorithm is not prepared for it either. Changing this parameter is not complex, but it alters the entire logic of the business model.
“We assume that it is not necessarily price alone, but the combination of price and time that will give us a competitive advantage. We are still learning how the Polish market works. We could not rely on the experience of competitors, because there was effectively no competition,” Michał Borek admits.
Good to know
The vehicle relocation market is highly fragmented
In the B2B transport segment, one of the largest operators is Germany’s Carmovia, active in 22 European countries and completing more than 68,000 transports annually (as of 2025), primarily for car dealers, leasing firms, and fleet operators. Its offering includes both “on-the-wheel” deliveries and tow-truck transport. This segment still accounts for the majority of vehicle relocation volumes in Europe and remains closely tied to the traditional Finished Vehicle Logistics (FVL) chain, where contract-based operators dominate, serving manufacturers and large fleets.
In parallel, the digital platform segment is growing rapidly, reshaping how transport is organized. France’s DriiveMe, operating on a “car relocation for €1” model, has completed more than one million relocations across Europe since 2012, expanding its network across countries including France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom. A similar model is offered by Germany’s Movacar, which connects drivers and customers through a crowd-based system and operates a network of more than 200,000 drivers and operators. In this segment, Clicktrans also operates, specializing in a marketplace-based matching of transport orders across Central Europe.
Appetite for new markets
Flovi is not stopping there. In the near future, the company will launch operations in Spain, where it aims to learn how to operate in a more competitive environment. It is also closely monitoring markets in Asia and South America. The company’s international expansion is expected to be accelerated by positive financial performance.
“If we wanted to fully finance our growth from the profitability of our core market, we would be able to do so. Our cash runway – the key metric for a growing startup, indicating how many months a company can operate before running out of cash – is therefore at a very healthy level,” concludes Michał Borek.
Key Takeaways
- The biggest challenge for Flovi in Poland is not competition, but customer education and changing established habits. The company notes that the key hurdle is “getting through the first 10 orders” per client. At the same time, local market characteristics – greater price sensitivity than time sensitivity – require adaptation of the model, demonstrating that scaling logistics innovation is not universally transferable.
- The Flovi model shows that shifting from tow trucks to a network of drivers supported by algorithms can radically reshape the economics of vehicle transport. The company claims an average delivery time of 23 hours at a cost of under PLN 1 (EUR 0.23) per kilometer, compared with several days and PLN 2–4 (EUR 0.46–0.93) per kilometer in the traditional model. The key factor is the elimination of “empty mileage” and the decentralization of resources, reflecting a broader trend in the so-called uberization of logistics.
- In Flovi’s case, artificial intelligence is responsible not only for route optimization but also for building the entire logistics network and determining the business viability of operations. Without algorithmic matching of supply and demand, a marketplace model at this scale would not make economic sense. The competitive advantage lies not in the technology alone, but in its integration with a favorable cost structure.