February 28th, 2013

Getaround Launches A New iPhone App To Simplify Peer-To-Peer Car Rentals

GetaroundLogo_RGB copy

Peer-to-peer car rental startup (and TechCrunch Disrupt winner) Getaround is built around the idea of helping customers to make use of cars they own, which are sitting around not being driven most of the time. Also, to help those without cars to quickly and easily gain access to one that’s sitting around and actually use it. → Read More

August 2nd, 2012

Getaround Raises $13.9M Series A Led By Menlo Ventures, Launches Getaway For Managed Car Rentals

getaround

Peer-to-peer car sharing service — and former TechCrunch Disrupt winner — Getaround just raised $13.9 million in new funding to expand into new markets and improve its product. It’s also rolling out a new product called Getaway that will let users who never use their cars to rent them out for months at a time, with Getaround managing rentals and handling all maintenance.

Getaround’s $13.9… → Read More

July 16th, 2012

RelayRides Teams Up With OnStar, Makes Car Sharing Easier For Millions Of GM Owners

relayrides

Car sharing is suddenly a hot topic and a number of startups like Getaround, Wheelz and JustShareIt are trying to capture a slice of this nascent market. Detroit-based RelayRides just leapfrogged quite a few of these by partnering with General Motor’s OnStar service. Using OnStar’s proprietary API, which will become available to other developers later this summer, the company’s potential users now… → Read More

June 26th, 2012

Hail A Fellow Human, Not A Taxi With “SideCar” – The New P2P Uber

SideCar App Logo

You need a ride, someone else has a car and could use the cash, SideCar is the app that will bring you together. New instant peer-to-peer rideshare-finding app SideCar turns anyone into a taxi / Uber driver, and it’s supposedly legal because you technically volunteer to pay at the end. Today it emerges from beta for iOS and Android in its first city, San Francisco.

Punch in your location and… → Read More

May 17th, 2012

Getaround Wants To Get You To TechCrunch Disrupt

getaround

Getaround was the big winner at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2011. Since then, the startup has continued to lead and dominate the car sharing space. This year, Getaround will be back in New York to help us hand off the massive Disrupt Cup to another deserving company yet to be discovered. Not only will they be there during the conference, but Getaround is co-hosting an awesome after party with us on… → Read More

March 5th, 2012

Just In Time For SXSW, Getaround Car Rental Marketplace Launches In Austin

getaround

Getaround, a car rental community that only launched in May 2011 and subsequently won TC Disrupt NY, is ready to get you where you need to be in time for SXSW.

The app that lets you rent a car by the hour, day or week, and comes fully loaded with insurance, 24-hour roadside assistance, and a Getaround car-kit has broken ground in some new territories, including (yep, you guessed it) Austin… → Read More

December 13th, 2011

P2P Car Sharing Startup Getaround Gets $1.7 Million Grant For Portland Launch

getaround

Getaround, the peer-to-peer car sharing company that won this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt NYC startup competition, this morning announced that it is poised to make its debut in the greater Portland metropolitan area by February of 2012, following an initial launch at Portland State University on the 1st of January.

To facilitate the launch, Getaround was selected by the Federal Highway→ Read More

December 8th, 2011

What Are The Best Startups Of 2011? #Crunchies

Crunchies logo

As open nominations for the 5th annual Crunchies awards enters its final week (nominate here until Dec 13), it’s time to figure out which are the best startups and products of 2011. The Crunchies, which we co-host along with GigaOm and VentureBeat, has 20 categories spanning but the most anticipated awards, the ones we save for last, are Best Overall Startup and Best New Startup of 2011.

Last… → Read More

October 31st, 2011

Airbnb Is Thinking About Partnering With Car-Sharing Services

airbnb-1

Airbnb, a marketplace that allows people to rent their homes and apartments via the web, is considering entering the car-sharing space. In a survey sent to us by an Airbnb host, the startup is asking hosts if they would rent out their cars along with their residences.

As shown in the screenshots below, Airbnb asks if owners allowed a guest to use a car during a stay, and if owners would rent a… → Read More

June 5th, 2011

The Power Of Online-To-Offline Is Moving Beyond Local Commerce

While the idea of ‘online to offline’ for purchasing is proving to be powerful in the local commerce world, the trend of linking the physical world to the web is producing a number of startups that are innovating beyond just purchasing from local merchants or finding a product nearby. Many of the most interesting startups that have emerged over the past year or so are making our lives in the real… → Read More

May 28th, 2011

Disrupt NYC: The Final Battle (Video)

After 30 startups launching on stage at Disrupt NYC, it all culminated in the final battle between six finalists: Getaround, BillGuard, Sonar, Do@, ccLoop, and InvoiceASAP. What made this final battle so fascinating to watch was not only the quality of the startups, but the quality of the judges: Fred Wilson, Ron Conway, Marisa Mayer, Roelof Botha, and Josh Kopelman.

We put together the entire… → Read More

May 27th, 2011

Disrupt NYC, In Tweets

I am still recovering from Disrupt NYC. It was our biggest event ever, and we’ll be posting more videos and highlights throughout the next few days. But here are a couple of charts that give a snapshot of the activity around the event as measured by Tweets with the event hashtag #TCDisrupt (thanks for the charts, Simply Measured).

In the chart above you can see the distribution of Tweets across… → Read More

May 25th, 2011

And The Winner Of TechCrunch Disrupt NYC Is…Getaround!

Three days and 32 startup pitches later, the winner of TechCrunch Disrupt has been determined. Out of the 30 startups and two audience choice winners, we whittled the list down to six finalists, which include Billguard, ccLoop, Do@, Getaround, InvoiceASAP, and Sonar. Without further ado, the two runners-up are Billguard and Sonar (that’s the first time we’ve had two runners-up). And the winner… → Read More

May 25th, 2011

Getaround Signed Up 1,600 Cars In A Day; That's 20 Percent Of Zipcar's Fleet

TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield finalist Getaround is already disrupting the current car sharing industry, only a day after its launch. As we wrote yesterday, GetAround is a car rental market place where you can rent a car by the day, hour or week through a smartphone app. Getaround’s all inclusive package, which includes insurance, 24 hour roadside assistance, a Getaround car-kit, iPhone app and… → Read More

May 1st, 2011

The P2P Evolution

space robot handshake

Many years ago, after graduating college, I came home before moving to NYC, wondering how I would scrounge together the money for the first month’s rent and security deposit so my friends and I could all live together in the Big Apple. I had one month to get the cash, and instead of going out for traditional, hourly-wage work, I decided to go through all of my old stuff and throw it on eBay. In… → Read More

September 14th, 2010

GetAround Is The AirBnB For Car Rentals

AirBnB, a startup that provides a marketplace to connect travelers with people who have some room for accommodation to spare in cities, has seen considerable success (and drawn a little controversy as well) with its model. Today, we’ve come across a nifty startup called GetAround that has taken AirBnB’s model and applied it to car rentals.

The startup, which provides a social car sharing service… → Read More