Car sharing service provider Getaround acquired France-based car rental marketplace Drivy yesterday in a $300m transaction that allowed car repair services provider Mobivia to exit.
Founded in 2010, Drivy runs a peer-to-peer car rental platform with roughly 2.5 million users across France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Belgium and the UK which enables users to book a vehicle on the platform and unlock it with an app on their smartphone.
The merged company will have more than 5 million users altogether, across 140 US cities and 170 cities in Europe. It had raised approximately $55m in funding in total.
Venture capital firms Index Ventures and Alven Capital provided $2.8m of seed funding for the company before adding $8.3m in a 2014 series A round. They joined Mobivia’s accelerator subsidiary, Via ID, and development bank BPIfrance’s Ecotechnologie Fund to invest a further $8.7m in 2015.
Drivy secured another $35m in a 2016 series C round co-led by NGP Capital, the VC firm spun off by communications technology producer Nokia that was then known as Nokia Growth Partners, and Cathay Innovation, with participation from Via ID, Ecotechnologie Fund and Index Ventures.
Sam Zaid, founder and CEO of Getaround, said: “As the leading European car sharing marketplace, Drivy has built a strong business with products, teams and values that closely align with ours at Getaround, making for a natural integration for our employees and users.
“Getaround is delivering on growing consumer demand by providing a consistent, instant and safe car sharing experience in 140 US cities – and now, across the 170 cities in Europe that Drivy has developed.”
Image courtesy of Drivy.
