Kyte (company)

Last updated
Kyte
Industry Car rental
Founders
  • Ludwig Schoenack
  • Nikolaus Volk
  • Francesco Wiedemann
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
,
United States
Number of employees
100 (2023)
Website kyte.com

Kyte is a San Francisco, California-based rental car service that delivers cars directly to customers. As of March 2023, it was operating in 14 cities across the United States and employed 100 people. [1]

Contents

History

Kyte was founded in San Francisco in 2019 by Ludwig Schoenack, Nikolaus Volk and Francesco Wiedemann, all of whom are German immigrants to the United States. Schoenack, who holds an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business, previously worked as a venture partner at venture capital firm Contrary, Volk previously worked at Uber as a software engineer, and Wiedemann previously worked at ReachNow. [2] [3] The company soft-launched its service in May 2019, originally only within the San Francisco city limits. [4] In January 2021, Kyte announced that they had raised $9 million from DN Capital and Amplo VC. [5] In August 2021, Kyte began offering car rentals in Seattle, which became the company's eighth city in which it was operating. [2] In March 2022, the company began operating in its fourteenth city, Portland, Oregon. That month, they also announced that they had raised a further $200 million from Goldman Sachs and Ares Management, and that they would use this money to add more vehicles to their fleet. [6] In November 2022, the company announced that it had raised a further $60 million in a Series B venture round of fundraising. In December 2022, Kyte announced that it would begin offering subscriptions lasting for either three, six, or twelve months in all fourteen of their markets. These subscriptions serve as an alternative to shorter-term rentals, and allow users to choose between Teslas and a range of other vehicles. [7]

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References

  1. ↑ Kyte (2023-03-07). "Kyte Appoints Barney Harford To Its Board of Directors". PRNewsWire (Press release). Retrieved 2024-01-08.
  2. 1 2 Deppen, Laurel (2021-08-06). "On-demand car rental service Kyte brings another transportation option to Seattle". GeekWire . Retrieved 2024-01-08.
  3. ↑ "Ludwig Schoenack, MBA '19, Kyte". Berkeley Innovators. University of California, Berkeley . Retrieved 2024-01-08.
  4. ↑ Lekach, Sasha (2019-09-12). "Kyte brings the rental car to you—then the driver finds a way home". Mashable . Retrieved 2024-01-08.
  5. ↑ Korosec, Kirsten (2021-01-05). "Kyte raises $9 million to deliver rental cars to your doorstep". TechCrunch . Retrieved 2024-01-08.
  6. ↑ Bellan, Rebecca (2022-03-24). "Rental car startup Kyte gets $200M loan from Goldman Sachs". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-01-08.
  7. ↑ Bellan, Rebecca (2022-12-01). "On-demand car rental company Kyte is now offering car subscriptions". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-01-08.
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