Car sharing company Zipcar has backed the $13.7m series A of Wheelz, a peer to peer [P2P] car sharing company targeting US college campuses.
Zipcar joins the growing crowd of companies which owe part of their successs to venture financing to turn to corporate venturing joining the likes Japan-based gaming company Nexon, US-based social gaming company CrowdStar and US-based cloud company Box.net which all started investing last year.
Zipcar listed on Nasdaq in 2010, after raising venture funds from investors including Revolution Living, Benchmark Capital Partners, Smedvig Capital and Greylock Partners.
Zipcar executive chairman Scott Griffith, who has joined Wheelz’s board, said: "Based on our analysis and primary research, we believe P2P could expand the total addressable market for car sharing. We chose to make this investment because we believe that Wheelz has the right leadership, technology and business model to succeed in the emerging P2P space."
Zipcar was joined in the round by Fontinalis Partners, a technology strategic investment firm. Mark Schulz, former president for international operations at US automotive corporation Ford Motor Company and founding partner at Fontinalis, is also joining the board, along with Jim Freer, former vice-chairman of Ernst & Young. Wheelz made a loss of about $1m in 2011.