Jason Kincaid currently works as a writer at TechCrunch. He grew up in Danville, California and later relocated to UCLA in Los Angeles, California, where he studied biology with a minor in ‘Society and Genetics’. You can reach him at jkincaidtc@gmail.com (he has other addresses too, so don’t worry if you have a different one). ? Learn More
RelayRides, a marketplace that lets car-owners rent out their cars a few hours at a time, has named former Shopping.com chief Andre Haddad as its CEO. The well-funded startup has raised $10 million to date, with investors including Google Ventures, August Capital, and Shasta Ventures.
RelayRides allows users to rent out their cars for select times during the week, and says that renters generate an average of $250 a month in revenue, of which they keep 65% (20% goes to insurance, 15% to RelayRides). Users on the other side of the deal benefit, because it’s generally much cheaper to rent a car through RelayRides than though traditional car rental services). And Haddad has plenty of experience with managing marketplaces — prior to joining Shopping.com, Haddad was SVP of Product at eBay and he founded European auction site iBazar.
RelayRides doesn’t share many specific numbers, but it says to date “thousands of owners have signed up their cars” for renting, and that the service has doubled revenue between June and August 2011 (obviously we don’t know what the revenue was in June, so it’s not clear how big a jump that is).
Alongside the news, the company is announcing that Jim Barnett (founder of Turn, former President of Overture) is joining RelayRide’s board.
RelayRides is a direct competitor with Getaround, which won TechCrunch Disrupt NYC earlier this year.
We enable car owners to rent out their private vehicles to their neighbors by providing the insurance and technology to make the transaction safe, convenient and easy. RelayRides represents the first mechanism for car owners to monetize one of their most valuable assets, by enabling them to make $4,500-$8,000 per year by renting out their car when it would otherwise be idle. Further, we provide affordable, on-demand mobility to those who need access to a car, making it easier to...
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