Getaround

Last updated
Getaround
OTC Pink  Current: GETR
Industry Carsharing
FoundedSeptember 9, 2009;15 years ago (2009-09-09)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
FoundersSam Zaid
Jessica Scorpio
Elliot Kroo
HeadquartersSan Francisco, California, U.S.
Area served
Urban areas of Boston, Chicago, San Francisco Bay Area, New Jersey, Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia, Miami, Atlanta, San Diego, Los Angeles, Denver, and Washington, D.C. Globally, Getaround is in France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Belgium, the U.K., Norway, and the Netherlands.
Services Carsharing
Number of employees
550 [1]
Website getaround.com

Getaround is an online car sharing or peer-to-peer carsharing service that connects drivers who need to reserve cars with car owners who share their cars in exchange for payment.

Contents

Getaround launched to the public on May 24, 2011, at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. The company operates in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco Bay Area, New Jersey, Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia, Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, San Diego, Los Angeles, Denver, and Washington D.C. [2]

History

Getaround was founded in 2009 by Sam Zaid, Jessica Scorpio, and Elliot Kroo. In May 2011, Getaround won the TechCrunch Disrupt New York competition. [3] In 2012, Getaround began serving Portland, Oregon with the aid of a $1.725 million grant from the Federal Highway Administration. [4]

In November 2016, Getaround reached an agreement with City CarShare to take over its fleet, parking spaces and member base. [5]

In August 2018, Getaround raised $300 million in fundings from Softbank. [6]

In April 2019, Getaround absorbed the carsharing platform Drivy for $300 million [7] [8] and rebranded as Getaround six months later. [9]

In May 2022, Getaround announced an agreement to merge with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) to start selling shares of the organization on the New York Stock Exchange. Listed as ‘GETR’, the company would have a equity value of $1.2 billion. [10]

Financial difficulties

In January 2020, The Information reported the company planned to lay off approximately 150 staff members or about 25 percent of its workforce. [11] Bloomberg reported in March 2020 that demand had dropped due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the company was short on cash and looking for a buyer. [12]

Getaround’s 2022 SPAC merger valued the company at $1.2 billion, but the company's stock soon fell, and by 2024 the company's market cap was roughly $24 million. In February 2024, Getaround laid off 30 percent of its staff, this after the company vacated its San Francisco headquarters in 2023. [13] In July 2024, the company's stock was delisted from the NYSE and transferred to the OTC Markets. [14]

Criminal use

Criminals have used Getaround, along with other peer-to-peer car rental services such as Turo, for illegal activities. In February 2020, the Washington Post reported that thieves were finding available cars using the Getaround mobile app, which displayed the exact locations of vehicles for rent. Victims have reported that thieves could break into a car, destroy the Getaround Connect device that is intended to immobilize the car and report its position, and take the keys that had been locked inside the vehicle. [15] Of the 787 cars stolen in the District of Columbia between October 1, 2019, and February 4, 2020, the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia estimated that 49 of the thefts involved car rental apps such as Getaround. [16] In July 2021, the Attorney General for the District of Columbia announced a settlement with Getaround that required Getaround to pay the district $950,000, to pay restitution to users whose vehicles had been damaged or stolen, and to make other changes to its platform. [17]

In February 2020, NBC News interviewed eight Getaround users whose cars had been stolen, damaged, seized by police as evidence, or otherwise misused. Many of the owners were not fully compensated by Getaround's insurance for their losses. A former Getaround employee told NBC News that the company has known since 2017 that its GPS tracking devices were not tamper-proof. [18]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uber</span> American ridesharing and delivery company

Uber Technologies, Inc. is an American multinational transportation company that provides ride-hailing services, courier services, food delivery, and freight transport. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and operates in approximately 70 countries and 10,500 cities worldwide. It is the largest ridesharing company worldwide with over 150 million monthly active users and 6 million active drivers and couriers. It facilitates an average of 28 million trips per day and has facilitated 47 billion trips since its inception in 2010. In 2023, the company had a take rate of 28.7% for mobility services and 18.3% for food delivery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carsharing</span> Brief car rental method

Carsharing or car sharing or car clubs (UK) is a model of car rental where people rent cars for short periods of time, often by the hour. It differs from traditional car rental in that the owners of the cars are often private individuals themselves, and the car sharing facilitator is generally distinct from the car owner. Car sharing is part of a larger trend of shared mobility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TechCrunch</span> American technology news website

TechCrunch is an American global online newspaper focusing on topics regarding high-tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SoundHound</span> American music and speech recognition company

SoundHound AI, Inc. is a voice AI and speech recognition company founded in 2005. It develops speech recognition, natural language understanding, sound recognition and search technologies. Its featured products include a voice AI developer platform, SoundHound Chat AI, a voice-enabled digital assistant, and music recognition mobile app SoundHound. Key vertical industries include the automotive, IoT devices, restaurant and customer service industries. The company’s headquarters are in Santa Clara, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turo (company)</span> American peer-to-peer car rental company

Turo Inc. is an American peer-to-peer carsharing company based in San Francisco, United States. The company allows private car owners to rent out their vehicles via an online and mobile interface in four countries and new corporate owners to rent out their cars in France in addition to the four previous countries.

Peer-to-peer carsharing is the process whereby existing car owners make their vehicles available for others to rent for short periods of time.

Twilio Inc. is an American cloud communications company based in San Francisco, California, which provides programmable communication tools for making and receiving phone calls, sending and receiving text messages, and performing other communication functions using its web service APIs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jessica Scorpio</span>

Jessica Scorpio is the founder and Former Chief Marketing Officer at Getaround, a peer-to-peer carsharing company. Scorpio previously founded IDEAL, a non-profit network for entrepreneurs and young leaders.

Uber Carshare was an Australian company that facilitated peer-to-peer car rental, a system by which individuals may rent privately owned vehicles on an hourly or daily basis to other registered users of the service. Established in 2012 as Car Next Door, it currently operates in all Australian capital cities as well as the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Newcastle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">City CarShare</span> Carsharing program in California, US

City Carshare was a carsharing program that operated in the San Francisco Bay Area, starting in 2001. It rented vehicles by the hour. In November 2016, the company effectively ceased operations, when Getaround, a for-profit, carsharing company, took over City CarShare's fleet, parking spaces, and member base.

Zoomcar is an Indian carsharing platform, headquartered in Bangalore. Founded in 2013 by David Back and Greg Moran, it currently operates in more than 34 cities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bolt (company)</span> Peer-to-peer ridesharing, food delivery

Bolt is an Estonian mobility company that offers ride-hailing, micromobility rental, food and grocery delivery, and carsharing services. The company is headquartered in Tallinn and operates in over 500 cities in more than 45 countries in Europe, Africa, Western Asia and Latin America. The company has more than 150 million customers and more than 3 million driver and courier partners. The company has plans for an initial public offering in 2025.

Revolut Group Holdings Ltd (Revolut) is a global neobank and financial technology company with headquarters in London, UK that offers banking services for retail customers and businesses. It was founded in 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko. It offers products including banking services, currency exchange, debit and credit cards, virtual cards, Apple Pay, interest-bearing "vaults", personal loans and BNPL, stock trading, crypto, commodities, human resources and other services.

Fisker Inc. is an American automotive company founded by Danish automotive designer Henrik Fisker and his wife Geeta Gupta-Fisker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gig Car Share</span>

GIG Car Share is a carsharing service in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, and Seattle, created by "A3 Ventures". The company operates a fleet of Toyota Prius Hybrid vehicles and all-electric Chevrolet Bolts. It offers one-way point-to-point rentals.

Bird Global, Inc. is a micromobility company based in Miami, Florida. Founded in September 2017, Bird has distributed electric scooters designed for short-term rental to over 400 cities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swvl</span> Ridesharing company based in Dubai

Swvl Holdings Corp. is an Dubai-based provider of tech-enabled mass transit solutions, offering intercity, intracity, B2B and B2G transportation products and services. Swvl operates in 135 cities in 20 countries across Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia. The company went public in March 2022 and is traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker SWVL.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arjun Sethi (entrepreneur)</span> American entrepreneur, investor and executive

Arjun Sethi is an American internet entrepreneur, investor and executive. He is co-founder and partner at venture capital firm Tribe Capital. He previously was partner at Social Capital and served as an executive at Yahoo! where he launched Yahoo! Livetext. Before that, he was co-founder and CEO of MessageMe and he was CEO of Lolapps, the developer behind Ravenwood Fair. In December 2023, he became Tribe Capital's chairman and CIO.

SnappCar is a Dutch peer-to-peer carsharing company based in Utrecht, Netherlands. The company operates in Netherlands and Germany. SnappCar, being a peer-to-peer carsharing company, doesn't own its fleet. The company's service enables car owners to rent out their personal vehicles, while ensuring insurance coverage.

References

  1. "Getaround". www.getaround.com. Retrieved 2017-11-08.
  2. "Getaround Expands To Boston", Newswire, May 10, 2017.
  3. DesMarais, Christina."Getaround Named 2011 TechCrunch Disrupt Winner" Archived 2011-11-11 at the Wayback Machine , Technology Inc., May 26, 2011.
  4. Tomio Geron (13 December 2011). "Getaround Brings Car-Sharing To Oregon With Federal Grant". Forbes.com. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  5. Carolyn Said (10 November 2016). "City CarShare hands over on-demand auto rentals to Getaround". Sfchronicle.com. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  6. "Car-sharing startup Getaround raises $300 million in funding led by SoftBank". Reuters.com. 21 August 2018. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  7. "Übernahme von Drivy: Carsharing-Riese Getaround drängt nach Europa" (in German). Retrieved 2019-04-24.
  8. Dickey, Megan Rose. "Getaround acquires European car rental platform Drivy for $300 million". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
  9. Dillet, Romain (2019-01-17). "Drivy rebrands to Getaround six months after acquisition". TechCrunch . Retrieved 2019-10-17.
  10. "Car-Sharing Startup Getaround Agrees to $1.2 Billion SPAC Merger". Bloomberg. 11 May 2022. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  11. Weinberg, Cory (2020-01-07). "Getaround to Lay Off About One-Fourth of Staff". The Information (company) . Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  12. SoftBank-Backed Getaround Looks for a Buyer as Demand Evaporates
  13. Council, Stephen (February 9, 2024) "Car rental company Getaround lays off 30% of staff after ditching SF headquarters." SF Gate. (Retrieved February 14, 2024.)
  14. "Getaround Announces NYSE's Suspension of Trading and Start of Delisting Process" (Press release). Business Wire. July 10, 2024.
  15. Lazo, Luz (February 14, 2020). "Thieves are using peer-to-peer car rental apps to find their next ride". Washington Post. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
  16. Barthel, Margaret (February 4, 2020). "Thieves Could Be Using A Carsharing App To Steal Cars, Says D.C. Attorney General's Office". WAMU. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
  17. Alamalhodaei, Aria (July 23, 2021). "Peer-to-peer car rental startup Getaround fined nearly $1M by DC's attorney general". TechCrunch. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
  18. Ingram, David (February 10, 2020). "Wrecked cars, homicide and bags of meth: Inside the wild ride of peer-to-peer car rentals". NBC News. Retrieved June 8, 2022.