French firm, Drivy, known as the ‘Airbnb for car rental’ is said to be making its way to Europe, having recently secured investment of 35 million euros.
Drivy, founded in 2010, currently operates in France, Germany as well as Spain. This new cash injection will primarily be used to bring the business to a European market, ensuring the business goes head-to-head with the likes of Hertz and the infamous Uber.
“We are going to open in at least three more countries in Europe, then we will scale to be able to open many more next year including outside of Europe,” Paulin Dementhon, founder and chief executive of Drivy, told CNBC by phone.
Permitting people to put their own car up for rent Drivy could offer itself as a cheaper transport alternative than Uber and other cab-sharing applications, a service that could certainly flourish here in the UK.
The entrepreneur and brains behind the business said the UK would be one of those markets, but has not yet decided on the other two. But, could their introduction harm businesses such as Hertz and Enterprise?
Dementhon explained that the services are in fact complementary to such businesses.
“The use case is different. The average rental is 3.2 days, it is decreasing slowly. Since we reduced the friction of using our service it is becoming possible to use it for half a day. You would never take an Uber for half a day otherwise it’s too expensive,” Dementhon said.
“The best news for us is that these companies are going faster and pioneering the sector. Ten years ago if you wanted a good level of service for mobility, you just buy a car, there was no doubt about it. Today because of the complementarity between the services, you can have a better level of mobility with all these apps.”
Let us know what you think, could Drivy add value to the UK rental market or stop businesses like Uber in their tracks? Leave your comments below.
