Mo’ money for peer-to-peer car rental service providers!
Viva the sharing economy! Long live collaborative consumption!
French startup Voiturelib is today announcing that it has secured 2 million euros (roughly $2.6 million) in Series A funding from Alven Capital, with ‘significant participation’ from Index Ventures. According to Frenchweb, the company had earlier secured 500,000 euros in seed funding.
Peer-to-peer car sharing is seemingly a hot space, with US players like Getaround (earlier coverage) and RelayRides attracting capital from some heavy hitters, UK-based WhipCar about to close a fresh funding round, and local players popping up all over the world (especially in Europe, with multiple startups attacking the German, French, Spanish and Dutch markets).
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You know the drill: like other p2p car exchange marketplaces, Paris-based Voiturelib lets private car owners rent out their vehicle for money. To date, the startup claims it has distributed over 1 million euros to car owners to date.
As of september 2012, 50,000 users are renting 5,000 cars on the platform.
Says founder and CEO Paulin Dementhon:
“We want to change the way people use cars. Our mission is to offer on-demand access to 100,000 cars at every street corner in Europe, as an alternative to owning just one car in one place.“
The service was originally launched in December 2010, and Voiturelib asserts that its business has been growing at a 30 percent monthly rate over the past year.
The fresh capital will be used to upgrade its platform, launch mobile apps and enhance security.
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