Ride-sharing startup Lyft has closed a $60 million third funding round led by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, the company announced on its blog.

The startup with the tagline, “your friend with a car,” has developed an iPhone and Android app that lets you order a ride from a stranger in a matter of minutes. It’s an alternative to taxi cabs and has taken off in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Lyft cofounder John Zimmer

The special touch is that Lyft cars are emblazoned with pink moustaches, and drivers routinely fist bump passengers when they step into the car — typically at the front, not the back. “A core value for the company is empathy, and we built that into the experience,” said Lyft cofounder John Zimmer in an interview with VentureBeat.

Lyft launched in San Francisco in the summer of 2012 and is the most recent product from parent company Zimride. Zimride has been around since 2007 and has closed about $7.5 million in funding. Zimmer said that the two products have raised a combined $83 million.

Lyft has seen some impressive traction since it launched. The company announced today that it is now facilitating 30,000 rides each week. For this reason, it’s attracted significant attention from investors; Lyft today confirmed that the $15 million fundraise led by Founders Fund reported by TechCrunch in January 2013 (closed in October 2012) is accurate.

If Lyft hasn’t reached you yet, expect to see moustache-adorned cars in your city by the end of 2014.

Zimmer said that Lyft intends to spread across the country — and eventually across the world — by the end of next year. With the new boost in capital, it will focus on building out the team.

“We have an ambitious goals and we know that,” he said. In the previous 12 months, Lyft has raised $75 million from Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Mayfield, FloodGate, and others — it must grow at an accelerated rate so its later-stage investors will see a return. It has raised a total of $85 million.

Lyft faces a number of potential challenges as it scales. ”They [our investors] all know there are regulatory hurdles — but it’s clear we’re going beyond what’s expected in terms of safety,” said Zimmer.

Drivers are vetted and subject to extensive background checks. But city regulators and consumers are still nervous — California authorities levied hefty citations against Lyft in November 2012. These were later dropped so the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) could reexamine its policies.

Among the original charges: a lack of evidence of property damage insurance coverage and evidence of workers compensation insurance, and failure to enroll drivers in the Department of Motor Vehicles Employer Pull Notice Program.

To its credit, Lyft has built up a community of supporters, who launched petitions on sites like Change.org to fight in its corner. “Our evangelists came out with thousands of phone calls and emails to the CPUC,” said Zimmer. “I think we’ll rally the troops again if need be.”

A decision from California regulators in favor of Lyft and other regulators could set a precedent. And therefore, Andreessen Horowitz must not have viewed this an obstacle to Lyft’s expansion plans, which are necessary for the firm to get a return on its investment.

In addition, the company operates on a community ride-sharing model, which sets it apart from chief competitor Uber. Passengers are asked for a suggested donation — it’s not entirely clear as it moves across the country (outside of cash flush cities like San Francisco) whether this will be paid. Zimmer recently admitted that he might have to reevaluate the business model.

Spotted: An aggressive ad campaign from Uber against its rival, Lyft

Perhaps the biggest threat of all comes from Uber, which recently rolled out its own ride-sharing service. Uber had relied on third-party limo and taxi services to provide drivers. But it has been watching its competitors steal market share — and has seen regulators give tacit approval to ride-sharing — and isn’t willing to give up valuable revenue.

When pressed about the competitive market, Zimmer quipped: “We led the peer-to-peer ride space — and there is a big difference between the community experience and what our competitors are doing.”

Finally, the company must stay committed to recruiting drivers who are willing to work on holidays and rush hour. To ensure it could keep its drivers happy so they wouldn’t be lured away by rivals, Lyft didn’t take a cut of the transaction for the first six months. Now, it is taking 20 percent from each ride.

To surmount these challenges, Lyft’s founding team is in full battle mode. “Better transportation that’s more affordable and more social is worth fighting for,” said Zimmer.

Read the full blog post announcing the fundraise here:

Celebrating One Year Together

What does the pink mustache stand for? It’s a question we get asked frequently. People are curious when they see it for the first time, but once you’re a part of the community, a bigger meaning comes through. The pink mustache is a smile. It’s the goal of finishing your ride a little happier than you were before. It’s the belief that people are inherently good. It’s the idea that a great conversation on a trip across town can result in a new friend, a job offer, or even a hug after a tough breakup. Longtime Lyft driver, Danielle, put it best when she said “Lyfting restored my faith in humanity.”

Since you’ve helped define this larger meaning, we wanted the Lyft community to be the first to hear about some good news. Today, just one year after we first launched in San Francisco, we’re excited to announce that we’ve received additional investment from the amazing team at Andreessen Horowitz to bring Lyft to cities all over the world. This funding, along with an investment from Founders Fund earlier this year, will support our global expansion, giving us resources to strengthen existing Lyft communities and build new ones. From the beginning, the Lyft community has set itself apart inspiring us with passion, and we’re thrilled to be on this journey together.

To celebrate the past year, we took a trip down memory lane with some of our favorite community moments. We’ve learned that getting a kind note from a stranger can make someone’s day, that spontaneous in-car karaoke sessions are sometimes the best part of a night out, and that simple acts of kindness can bring us closer together.

If you have your own Lyft memories you’d like to share from this past year, we’d love to hear from you on Facebook or Twitter with #lyftlove.

Sometimes regulation puts the brakes on innovation, and car-focused startups have learned this more than most. Now car-sharing startup RelayRides has suspended its service in New York City after the New York state’s Department of Financial Services served it with a cease-and-desist letter.

RelayRides is a peer-to-peer car-sharing marketplace in which people offer their cars for daily or weekly rentals, and it recently acquired competitor Wheelz. But the Department of Financial Services says RelayRides has been operating in violation of New York insurance laws and is “putting the public at risk” with inadequate insurance coverage.

So RelayRides has shut down in New York until further notice. The company writes in a blog post:

We are actively working with the Department to address these concerns. While we’re cooperating with the Department on these changes, we will be suspending activities that it considers non-compliant.

Effective Thursday, May 16, and until further notice, renters will no longer be able to make reservations for New York vehicles. Likewise, owner vehicles listed in New York will no longer be available. Trips already in progress in NY will not be affected by this change.

New York City has become a battleground for taxi, car-sharing, and ride-sharing applications. Just a few weeks ago, the CEOs of ride-sharing service SideCar and taxi-hailing app Hailo slugged it out onstage about New York’s rigid regulations.

Broken down car warning sign via SteveWoods/Shutterstock

RelayRides is a peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace where people can offer their cars for daily or weekly rentals. Wheelz adopted a similar model as well as proprietary DriveBox technology that facilitates keyless access to cars. With this acquisition, RelayRides will absorb Wheelz and its marketplace, technology, and several “key people” from the Wheelz team.

“RelayRides has been growing rapidly and we are confident that this acquisition will turbo-charge our growth,” said RelayRides director of communications Steve Webb to VentureBeat. “We are going to be better positioned to extend the benefits of peer-to-peer car sharing to more people across the U.S. This acquisition demonstrates that the peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace is maturing and consolidating. As an industry matures, consolidation follows, and the peer-to-peer car sharing industry is no exception. We are witnessing the evolution and maturation of an exciting space.”

Webb said that RelayRides and Wheelz share the goal of having a car within a 10-minute walk for at least 100 million Americans by the end of 2015. Instead of owning a car or renting one from an agency, people can turn to services like RelayRides for a more personal and affordable mode of transportation. Each car on the site has a profile with information about its features, ratings and reviews, and owner bio. All drivers are screened, and RelayRides provides insurance on the rentals, so drivers don’t have to worry about damages.

RelayRides and Wheelz are part of a trend surrounding “the rise of disownership.” Consumer attitudes and behaviors surrounding renting, borrowing, and leasing items, versus ownership, are shifting across the country. People are increasingly engaging in disownership by putting their under-used property to work. Internet startups facilitated this movement by adopting ‘shared economy’ or ‘collaborative consumption’ models that connect people with available assets to people who need them. AirBnB did this for homes, TaskRabbit for services, but the transportation space is still a dynamic and crowded area. Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar can be used instead of taxis, and RelayRides is providing an alternative to traditional rental agencies. It mainly competes with Zipcar and Getaround.

Since launching in 2012, RelayRides added tens of thousands of members into its marketplace and thousands of postings for cars. Webb said rental reassertion hours increased by 500 percent and April was the company’s best month yet in terms of revenue and new members added. By scooping up Wheelz, RelayRides will expand its marketplace.

RelayRides has raised $13 million in venture capital. In 2012, it teamed up with General Motors so that 6 million of GM’s OnStar subscribers could rent out their cars using RelayRides. Wheelz had raised a total of $15.7 million and includes Zipcar has an investor. Both companies are headquartered in San Francisco.

The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Photo Credit:  Darryl W. Moran Photography

Are you okay with someone taking your car out for a spin while you’re away on vacation? You might be now. Flightcar, which got $5.5 million in funding today, gives you free parking at the airport while simultaneously renting out your car.

Yes, you get to keep the money from the rental too.

The first round of funding comes from General Catalyst, Softbank Capital, Ryan Seacrest’s Seacrest Global Group, founder of Airbnb Brian Chesky, with participation from a host of other investors including First Round Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, according to TechCrunch.

In order to have your car rented out while you’re on vacation, you must first list it on the Flightcar websites, where it will be vetted and your driving record will be checked. Your car must have been made after 1999. If all checks out, then you can simply call the Flightcar folks 10 minutes before you’re due to arrive at the airport and then drop your ride off. After you’ve let them know when you’ll be back in town, a black car will drive you to your terminal. When you get back in town, give the Flightcar guys again and they’ll send another black car to pick you up and bring you to the lot.

The service is protected by a $1 million insurance plan, should anything happen.

If Flightcar rents out your car, which is also done through the website, then you’ll be given a check and may be some gas credits (the company promises up to $10 a day for rented cars). If not, you get free parking.

The company launched at Y Combinator’s demo day in March this year where it received its $580,000 seed round of funding.

Long term parking image via The Daring Librarian/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Not to be outdone by its competition, Uber has reached an agreement with the California authorities.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) struck its first deal with popular ride-sharing service Lyft. Twenty-four hours later, the state has also agreed to suspend its $20,000 fine and cease-and-desist action against Uber, the smartphone app that you can use to summon a car instead of hailing a traditional cab.

This agreement provides Uber with the breathing room to continue operating its hire-a-car service and expand into the ride-sharing market.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick told the New York Times that the ride-sharing service will be unveiled in California in the coming weeks. In California, Uber operates in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange County, Sacramento, and a few smaller cities.

As part of its official statement to the press, Uber said:

The agreement states that ride-sharing — or rides provided by drivers not specifically licensed to drive a limousine or taxi — is legal, too. This paves the way for Uber to begin offering ride-sharing services in California in the near future.

As we reported yesterday, California is taking six months to perform background checks and assess whether services like SideCar, Lyft, and Uber are in compliance.

The CPUC is also considering new regulations that could legalize ride-sharing. In December it issued a proposal for new rulemaking, which will evaluate how these new businesses are using “mobile communications and social networks to connect individuals wishing to offer and receive low cost and convenient, sometimes shared, transportation.”

Uber has faced similar regulatory battles in other cities as it expands. In a blog post, a company spokesperson stressed that California is “cutting edge” and appears set to lead a “steady drumbeat of progress.”

Popular ride-sharing startup Lyft got a green light today to continue operating while the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) re-examines its policies.

In their efforts to bring new transportation options to urban residents, these services have consistently butt heads with the authorities. In November, we reported that hefty citations were levied against Uber, Lyft and SideCar, prompting users to launch an online petition.

But today, the PUC agreed to suspend the $20,000 fine and cease and desist notice against Lyft. The State is taking six months to perform background checks and assess whether these services are in compliance. The CPUC has not yet reached any similar agreement with Uber and SideCar.

The CPUC is considering new regulations that could legalize ride-sharing. In December it issued a proposal for new rulemaking. The proposal states that this is “a situation not encountered before,” and that it will evaluate how these new businesses are using “mobile communications and social networks to connect individuals wishing to offer and receive low cost and convenient, sometimes shared, transportation.”

Lyft responded to the news by announcing plans to expand into Los Angeles. It has already begun recruiting drivers in its first new city outside of San Francisco.

Since it launched in August, Bay Area residents have become familiar with Lyft’s fleet of moustache-adorned cars. Payment is donation-based and often works out cheaper than a taxi. Users can order a ride from their smartphone in a matter of seconds, and a car will typically arrive in 10 minutes or less.

A commission press release said:

“The terms of the agreement are intended to ensure the public safety of both riders and drivers through the CPUC’s interim oversight of Zimride [Lyft's parent company] during the rulemaking through safety requirements that include continued proof of insurance, Department of Motor Vehicle checks, and national criminal background checks.”

This is a significant step forward in the protracted battle between ride-sharing services and State authorities. But the fight isn’t over. Today, users launched a Change.org petition to show support for Uber in an ongoing regulatory battle in Denver.

Thanks to new legislation, Uber, the posh car-hailing service, has rolled out its taxi service in Washington DC.

In the nation’s capital, smartphones users can now hail a DC cab, as well as one of Uber’s sedans or SUVs. The news was announced today on the company blog. Given its troubles with the local authorities, Uber often refers to these expansion plans as “experiments.” Owing to legislation passed by the DC Council, which would increase the supply of vehicles-per-hire and thwart regulators, the company remains optimistic.

The trademark black cars will remain the default, so to request a taxi, users will need to select that option within the app. Once the taxi arrives, the driver will start the fare just like any other normal DC ride, but Uber users won’t pay once they’ve reached their destination. All charges will go to the credit card on file. To request via SMS, head to m.uber.com.

Still, a company spokesperson writes that they expect the taxi service to change over time. Supply will be limited at first, and the service will only be available in the District.

Uber has repeatedly seen its expansion plans stymied by local authorities. In the Fall, 2012, Uber had to halt its New York City experiment in allowing smartphone users to hail taxis. Months later, a vote by the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission enabled Uber users to e-hail taxis “blocks or miles away” via smartphone, and the company announced its imminent return.

Related: Read more about Lyft and Uber’s struggles with city regulators

In the aftermath of the announcement, Zipcar came under a firestorm of flak from Silicon Valley’s commentators. The primary criticisms are that the company is under-valued, and that the acquisition will stunt the unstable and nascent car-sharing economy.

However, the acquisition adds legitimacy to the car-sharing space, and will propel younger rivals into the spotlight.

“It’s a big day for car sharing and a proof-point for the industry,” said Jessica Scorpio, cofounder of Getaround, on hearing the news. In an interview, Scorpio said it was a “good deal,” primarily because the car-sharing market is still in its infancy. “Zipcar’s value hasn’t been realized yet,” she explained.

Massachusetts-based Zipcar is the undisputed leader in the car-sharing market. It was one of the first to experiment with the sharing business model when it’s founder Robin Chase, a mother of three, saw evidence of car-sharing’s success in Berlin in the late 1990s and promptly received financing. This model would later be dubbed the ‘The Sharing Economy’ by its Bay Area advocates, including Zipcar early investor and former AOL chief executive Steve Case, and would later be adopted by services like Airbnb.

Zipcar manages a fleet of more than 10,000 for-rent vehicles spread across 19 metropolitan markets and over 300 college campuses. The 12-year-old car-sharing network has more than 730,000 members and about 1 million customers. The company booked 4 million total reservations in 2011.

At first look, this may seem impressive, but Zipcar has never been able to turn an annual profit, losing about $55 million since 2007. This prompted the Wall Street Journal to recently call it a “pretty awful” company.

Still, the new generation of startups view Zipcar as the pioneer in the space, paving the way for more feasible business models. The company was one of the first to experiment with hourly rentals, which allowed it to break into markets and demographics that traditional car-rental services like Hertz and Avis could not. The service found its niche with busy urbanites who rent nearby vehicles for weekend use, and often opt out of owning a car altogether.

Is $500 million a fair price?

From a purely financial perspective, it’s a fair deal.

Zipcar has struggled to grow its membership base and turn a profit. As entrepreneur Mark Rogowsky rightly points out in Forbes, there is a fundamental “structural issue” — users typically rent a Zipcar over the weekend. But Zipcar owns a fleet of roughly 10,000 for-rent vehicles and must pay for their upkeep and maintenance on a consistent basis.

An acquisition is also motivated by a company’s efforts to market to new customers. In a phone call with analysts, Avis CEO Ronald L. Nelson revealed that he was skeptical of car-sharing services in the past but viewed this acquisition as an opportunity to reach a younger demographic and increase weekend availability.

Avis hopes this will translate into revenue — it said it expects “to generate $50 to $70 million in annual synergies” in relation to the deal. The company also said it expects its full-year 2012 revenue to be about $7.3 billion, a 24 percent increase over 2011.

“What’s unique about Zipcar is the brand,” said Scorpio. “In terms of car-sharing, Zipcar is the top-notch experience.” She told me that traditional car-rental services have been sniffing at the heels of Silicon Valley startups for years, but that Getaround isn’t in the market for an acquisition.

“We have pretty frequent conversations with car rental [companies] and car automakers,” she said. “[But] I think the quick win is Zipcar if you can get it.”

Zipcar owns cars — it’s not peer-to-peer

Zipcar’s younger rivals will often tell you that its business model is broken, as the company is encumbered by its inventory. In its life span, it has needed to borrow $97 million to finance its fleet of cars.

“Thank God we don’t have that model,” said RelayRides‘ CEO Andre Haddad in an interview. “Their economics are different.”

The “peer-to-peer” model has numerous business advantages. It taps into the installed base of cars that people already own. For one thing, Getaround has developed some unique IP in the form of its hardware, its CarKit, which allows users to unlock a stranger’s car via a smartphone.

Both RelayRides and Getaround have seen faster adoption and have expanded to more cities than Zipcar. Getaround claims to have signed up over 10,000 car owners in a year and a half, while Zipcar took 12 years to build up its fleet of 10,000 cars.

While Zipcars often sit idle, Getaround has been able to capitalize and plans on “leveraging the 250 million cars that sit idle 22 hours per day,” according to Scorpio. Likewise, Relayrides, a service that lets you rent cars from anyone in your community, expanded last year from 2 cities in 2 states to 1,200 cities in 49 states.

With peer-to-peer, there are no parking or logistics issues, and scaling is more seamless. As Scorpio often says, “It’s about car access over ownership.”

Meanwhile, Zipcar couldn’t find a cost-effective way to increase its membership, and its growth rate hit the skids in the past three years. As the Wall Street Journal points out, Zipcar was a “prodigious money-loser” and consistently had to halt plans to move into Europe, which would take more resources than the company had at its disposal.

This deal won’t halt innovation

The news seems to have offended some commentators, who hit back with claims that such a move would stunt disruptive innovation, perhaps even knocking the confidence of younger players in the space.

Sarah Lacy of PandoDaily wrote about her many reasons for hating the deal, arguing that Zipcar has made “inroads into this oligopoly” and that with the “biggest disruptor gone … all the others are still fledgling.” She said that Avis is not a tech company and would be unlikely to push the envelope.

The deal may not be considered cool from Silicon Valley’s (somewhat insular) perspective, but it doesn’t appear to have affected morale.

As a whole, the ride-sharing space has experienced its ups and downs, most recently with lawsuits levied against services like Uber, Sidecar, and Lyft, but yesterday’s acquisition isn’t one of them.

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News that Avis Budget Group plans to buy car sharing network Zipcar for $500 million opened some eyes this morning. But this could have trouble going through, with a law firm announcing it is investigating whether Zipcar didn’t get the best deal possible.

Former SEC attorney Willie Briscoe and the securities litigation firm Powers Taylor will investigate whether Zipcar’s shareholders won’t get enough cash in the transaction.

Avis said it will pay $12.25 per share for Zipcar, a premium of about 50 percent over Zipcar’s share price on Dec. 31. But the investigating party says the Zipcar board may not have obtained the highest price it could have.

“Due to the proposed sale price, the size of the deal and other factors, we believe this transaction may undervalue Zipcar’s stock,” Briscoe said in a statement. “Our proposed lawsuit will seek to obtain the highest share price for all shareholders.”

Briscoe and Powers Taylor pointed out that one Yahoo Finance analyst estimated Zipcar’s shares to be worth up to $13 apiece. It’s also notable that Zipcar’s 52-week high on the stock market was $16.25 per share.

Avis said it expected the Zipcar deal to close in the second quarter of 2013, so we will see what happens.

Car crash image via Lee O’Dell / Shutterstock.com

Rental car giant Avis Budget Group has agreed to buy car-sharing network Zipcar for $500 million in cash, the two companies announced today.

Avis will pay $12.25 per share for Zipcar, a premium of about 50 percent over Zipcar’s share price on Dec. 31. The deal will help Avis get an immediate handle on the quickly growing car-sharing marketplace.

“By combining with Zipcar, we will significantly increase our growth potential, both in the United States and internationally, and will position our company to better serve a greater variety of consumer and commercial transportation needs,” Avis Budget Group CEO Ronald Nelson said in a statement. “We see car sharing as highly complementary to traditional car rental, with rapid growth potential and representing a scalable opportunity for us as a combined company.”

Once the deal is completed, Zipcar will operate as a subsidiary of Avis. Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith and COO Mark Norman will likely continue to run the day-to-day operations of Zipcar.

Avis said it expects “to generate $50 to $70 million in annual synergies” in relation to the deal. Avis sees serious opportunities to increase Zipcar’s weekend fleet availability, which it will boost using Avis cars.

Avis also said it expects its full-year 2012 revenue will be about $7.3 billion, a 24 percent increase over 2011.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2013.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Lyft‘s the mobile app that lets you order a moustache-bearing car in minutes, and it’s now expanding to several new cities, including Seattle and Los Angeles.

The startup is not letting its regulatory troubles get in the way of its growth plans. As we recently reported, the California Public Utilities Commission demanded $20,000 in fines from Lyft and rival ride-sharing services Uber and SideCar.

With its “friendly” drivers and donation-based payment model — as opposed to a set fee — Lyft has spread like wildfire in San Francisco since launching out of beta in August. Lyft is the next evolution of Zimride, the car-pooling service that is popular with college students.

With an outpouring of public support in the wake of these hefty citations, Lyft has the confidence it needs to bring its service to more U.S. cities. Don’t expect immediate changes — cofounder Josh Zimmer reported to TechCrunch that hiring drivers and operations staff takes time, and Lyft won’t roll out to more than one city in January.

Lyft’s growing pool of users received a glowing email from the company’s CEO and a list of job openings in new cities.

It has been an incredible year. Riding together, you’ve found new friends, music, and creative collaborators while exploring every corner of this great city. Thank you for building a passionate community with us in San Francisco!

In 2013, we’re expanding our horizons, bringing the social transportation revolution to cities across the country. That’s where you (or any of your friends) come in – join our team and help us take Lyft to new heights!

Top image // Christina Farr, VentureBeat

Hi Justus, can you tell me about the company and what you’re doing?

We have a website for peer-to-peer car-sharing. That means that if you own a car, you can rent it out to strangers when you’re not using it and make money instead of having it sitting in your driveway. We have insurance that covers everything, in case your car goes missing or there’s an accident or anything like that.

On the other hand, if you want to rent a car you can get them much more cheaply from us than if you go to rental companies. We have 2,700 cars in Germany in total, built up since we launched two years ago.

The car-owners set the price for their cars and say if it’s a price for four hours, a daily price, or a weekly price. Depending on the car the price is very different. You can imagine that a Porsche or a Ford Model A (pictured below) costs a lot more than a VW Golf to rent!

What inspired you to create Tamyca?

You probably don’t want to talk about it but … have any accidents happened yet?

You can imagine that at some point there will be accidents, because that’s the way it works. We’ve had some accidents, but so far everything has been covered by the insurance. We really try to be there for our customers and have good customer support. If you have a bad experience one time then your less likely to give your car away again, so this feedback and customer care is really important for us.

What’s your business model?

We have, on the one hand, cheap cars – cars that are cheaper than Herz, for example. And the other positive is that we are available in small villages and cities in Germany, where there are no car hiring or sharing companies to begin with. But Tamyca is definitely most popular in Berlin.

The car owner gets to set the daily rate to rent their car, and we put a small additional cost on top, called the Tamyca fee, which is €9.90. This is for the insurance, plus a small amount for us. At the moment that’s where we’re getting our profits from.

Whats the market potential for Tamyca?

Car-sharing is a growing market at the moment, you can see all the big players like Daimler and BMW implementing their own models like Drivenow and car2go, so it’s a trending and growing market, which is hard to put into numbers.

But I think that in the future everyone will rent out their cars and share their homes. You can really see that peoples’ mindset is changing. They don’t see owning a car as being a status symbol, they’re starting to see cars as tools that should be used. Like you wouldn’t consider a hammer a status symbol, you just use it. People are happy to give their car away. There are still some barriers, but that is why we have very comprehensive car insurance. We want to make sure everything is really carefree when you sign up to rent out your car, but we make sure to cover all bases with this insurance.

What makes you different from the competition?

We have direct competition in Germany, there are two other sites (Autonetz.de and Nachbarschaftsauto.de) that offer peer-to-peer sharing, but we were the first online and are the largest. Our insurance package is also more comprehensive, we have an anti-theft insurance, which is essential for car owners who want to put their cars on the platform.

Who’s financing you?

We had our seed round a year ago and were funded by Kizoo AG, the founders of lastminute.de and web.de.

Are you missing anything at the moment?

We’re happy with our team and office, but we’re on the search for investors. We’re in discussion with some already, but it never hurts to mention it.

What advice would you give other startups?

At the beginning of our startup we were faced with the question of whether we should outsource the website development and pay someone to build it, and I’m really happy we didn’t do that. Right now we have everything under one roof, our whole team. I think that’s the best way to do it as a startup, because you can iterate much faster if you don’t have to communicate with a third party. It helps connect the different elements – for example, if we think of something for marketing we can immediately include it in the website by telling the IT people to implement it. On the one hand it’s really fun working together, but it also means we can build things a lot faster and try them out and test them together.

Where will Tamyca be in a year?

Hopefully we’ll have a lot more cars and maybe we’ll tackle Europe then. That’s our master plan.

This story originally appeared on VentureVillage, VentureBeat’s Berlin-based syndication partner.

Getaround, the car-sharing marketplace that makes it dead easy to take a spin in a stranger’s car, has pulled in $13.9 million in first round funding from an all-star cast of investors: Menlo Ventures’ Shervin Pishevar, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, actor Ashton Kutcher, and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.

“Our investors want to disrupt transportation as much as we do,” said company co-founder Jessica Scorpio (pictured above). “There are way too many cars on the planet.”

Scorpio told me she was first approached by Mayer, who invests in about five or six companies a year, at TechCrunch Disrupt, where the company launched last year. This is Mayer’s first investment since joining Yahoo as CEO and follows recent investments in Airtime and Square.

San Francisco-based Getaround was founded in 2009 and has grown quickly in recent years, expanding to new cities and signing up over 10,000 car owners across the country. Scorpio told me the startup recently eclipsed rival Zipcar, which currently owns about 8,000 cars. International expansion is in the cards, but the company remains focused on the U.S. market.

Scorpio said it was the hardware that sold Mayer on the concept. Once installed, the Getaround CarKit allows cars to be unlocked via a smartphone. This is the key differentiator, as it takes the pain out of the hand-off process between renter and owner. Although Scorpio said she views the main obstacle as car ownership, Getaround faces competition from Zipcar, Zimride, Car2Go, and Relayrides, as well as a host of newcomers in the hot car-sharing space.

Scorpio told me the company plans to use the funds to expand into new cities beyond San Francisco, Portland, Austin, and San Diego and to forge partnerships with key players, such as car dealers and auto-makers.

The company may also search for new ways to monetize; it currently makes money by charging the car owner a 40 percent commission. This may seems high, but it’s a better alternative to leaving your car in a lot to slowly gather dust.

Funding aside, since Getaround’s inception, Scorpio said she had a niggling use-case in mind, one that she hasn’t been able to let go. ”A lot of people have approached us and said they would like to share their car on Getaround but couldn’t manage it themselves,” she said.

So today, Getaround also launches a product in beta called Getaway. Getaway is a new service for car owners who want to rent their car on a full-time basis. It’s an ideal option for college students, backpackers, or business travelers don’t want to sell their car or shoulder the cost of storing it.

Getaway is currently only available in San Francisco and Chicago.

On Getaway, car owners are guaranteed $1000 a month, or Getaround will make up the difference. The guidelines for Getaway cars remain about the same: the company will only accept automatics that are under-five-years old, and have accumulated less than 100,000 miles.

To ensure your car won’t be in the wrong hands, Getaround will deliver a monthly report detailing where the car has been driven and the milage. If there’s a special request (for instance, you only want to rent to an urban driver), the company’s support team is willing to negotiate.

Scorpio told me that competitors in the ride sharing space are sprouting up fast and furious, a direct result in renewed interest in the collaborative consumption space. “When we started the company, the sharing economy didn’t exist so we knew we had to change people’s mindset,” she said.

Scorpio credits social networks with improving transparency and mitigating risk for the owner. Strangers will trust each other with their most intimate possessions – their cars and homes — knowing through Facebook and LinkedIn that they are only 2 or 3 degrees of separation away.

The round is led by Menlo Ventures’s Shervin Pishevar, who will join the company’s board. This is the largest round since the raised $3.4 million in September, 2011.

People are loving the “what’s mine is yours” mentality stemming out of popular companies like HomeAway, Airbnb, Getaround and others. Now, recognizable investors getting in on the action. According to TechCrunch, this round was oversubscribed with investors like Netflix founder Marc Randolph, and WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg throwing cash into the pot. RelayRides, a direct competitor to Getaround, recently raised $3.6 million from Google Ventures.

Getaround allows anyone to sell access to their car in a similar style to Zipcar. You choose how much you would like to charge per hour and when the car is available. Then renters sign up for a specific slot of time. Getaround takes a 40 percent cut of the profit. You can list your car on Getaround as long as it is no older than 1995 with less than 150,000 miles on it, has maximum capacity of 8 people, is a private passenger vehicle and, entertainingly, has four wheels or more (yes, it does specify this). Horsepower requirements vary.

The investment in Getaround is one of the first for founder of TechCrunch Michael Arrington’s CrunchFund. The $20 million fund was started only this month and has already stirred media up, discussing conflicts between TechCrunch and CrunchFund, as well as Arrington and his former employer AOL. AOL and a number of other well known venture capitalist firms such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Sequoia Capital and Greylock Partners are involved in the new fund.

Getaround launched at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference in May. Other investors in the round include Powerset founder Barney Pell, Redpoint Ventures and General Catalyst. The service is currently only available in California in San Francisco, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Berkeley and other Bay Area cities.

[First image via Susan Montgomery/Shutterstock]

Google is installing 150 110-volt “Level 1″ and 71 fast-charging “Level 2″ 240-volt options — which can charge an electric car like the Nissan Leaf to an 80-percent charge in around 3 hours. The charging stations are more beneficial for people who live further from the Mountain View, Calif. Googleplex and its associated campuses and might encourage more Google employees to drive electric cars. So drivers can simply drop off their cars while they head off to work and return to have a near-full or full charge to make it back home.

Google already has an electric car sharing program called Gfleet. The company has 30 electric cars and plug-in electric hybrids, most of which are hybrid Chevy Volts or pure plug-in electric Nissan Leafs. The Gfleet program started in 2007 when the company retrofitted a fleet of Toyota Priuses with batteries from A123 to give Google employees a “green” option for car sharing instead of typical car sharing programs like Zipcar, which predominantly use cars powered by internal combustion engines.

Google is notorious for offering its employees a whole host of perks for working at the search giant. They get free transportation between the Googleplex and other areas in the San Francisco Bay Area. The company also gives its employees free food at the cafeteria. And there are reports of times when company officials are basically handing out wads of cash to their employees.

Most electric cars are limited in their range. The Nissan Leaf, one of the cheapest electric cars at $33,000, can travel around 100 miles before needing a charge. Tesla Motors’ super-powered batteries last much longer, but the cars are significantly more expensive — the Roadster, for example, can travel around 200 miles but costs $109,000. That company’s next car, a sedan, will be less expensive and can travel up to 300 miles, but it will still be significantly more expensive than the Nissan Leaf.

Google has invested $400 million in clean technology plays, including wind power and solar power plants. The company recently invested $55 million in a wind farm in southern California that will generate 1,550 megawatts of power. Google’s clean energy investments don’t come out of the company’s traditional investment arm, Google Ventures. Instead, the money comes from the company’s main treasury and is invested by the company’s Green Business Operations team.

Getaround first started generating buzz late last year, but with its official launch the company has seemingly responded to every criticism it initially faced. It’s launching an iPhone app that will let you easily locate, rent, and open cars in its marketplace — which communicates with an even more impressive car-kit, that’s easy enough for anyone to install.

Most importantly, the company has partnered Berkshire Hathaway to provide insurance while your car is being rented. Berkshire provides full collision, comprehensive and liability coverage for every car in Getaround’s marketplace.

The company said that it structured everything so that there’s no risk to the owner. Getaround’s insurance doesn’t affect your current car insurance at all, and it only kicks in when the car is being rented.

“There are over 250 million personal vehicles in the U.S and they sit idle an average of 22 hours each day,” Getaround co-founder Sam Zaid said. That means there’s huge potential for the company to take off if it can assure users it’s trustworthy.

The service works much like Zipcar, except the owner is in charge of the availability of their car.  Renters can see when particular cars are available, and submit a request to rent it via the web or mobile app. Once the owner approves it, the renter can easily open the car using their iPhone (and I assume other phones in the future).

Getaround takes a 40 percent commission from rental proceeds — but 60 percent certainly isn’t a bad return when your car could be alternatively sitting in the driveway doing nothing.

The service also has plenty of advantages over the competition. Rental prices, which are set by the car owners, are generally cheaper than Zipcar or traditional car rental companies. Getaround also doesn’t have the problem with expanding like Zipcar does, since it doesn’t have to worry about deploying and maintaining a fleet of cars. It’s also just as useful in less densely populated areas as it is in cities.

RelayRides, another car-sharing startup in Boston, offers a very similar service, but at this point it seems like Getaround is pushing to build a more social marketplace.

San Francisco-based Getaround was founded in 2009 and so far has raised $1.5 million in funding.

Full disclosure: I own some Zipcar stock.

The shares started at $18 and closed at $28 today. In after-hours trading, the stock is up another 19 cents. The company raised more than $174 million by issuing 9.68 million shares in the IPO. The underwriters were Goldman Sachs Group and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. The amount raised was far above the company’s original estimate of $75 million.

The news bodes well for the future of car-sharing, which is an efficient way of getting around in crowded cities. With Zipcar, users can locate a car on the web, rent it, and then park it in a location where another user can pick it up. It’s more convenient than renting a traditional rental car and cheaper than owning one outright, since you don’t have to pay parking costs.

Zipcar’s early investors included Benchmark Capital, Greylock Partners, Smedvig Capital, and AOL founder Steve Case’s Revolution LLC. In June of 2010, Zipcar filed its first intentions for an IPO. Now the company has 560,000 users. For the year ended Dec. 31, 2010, Zipcar reported revenue of $186.1 million and a net loss of $14.12 million. Zipcar has thousands of cars in 14 cities and on more than 230 college and university campuses.

Rivals include RelayRides, GetAround, and Spride Share.

Zipcar is looking to sell around 6.7 million shares when it finally goes public, meaning it could raise somewhere between $93 million and $107 million excluding underwriting costs — higher than its original estimate of a $75 million IPO. Existing Zipcar shareholders are also selling around 1.7 million shares — though none of the proceeds from those sales will go to Zipcar, according to the filing.

There were some questions as to when the company would finally go public after it closed a $21 million funding round led by Meritech capital in December. That funding was designed to clean up its balance sheet and make the stock more appealing to public investors.

The service is available in most cities — cars are kept at various locations across a city in special parking spots. Users sign up for a subscription and then schedule a time and a car to pick up. They receive a card that activates the car and are free to drive it during their scheduled time.

The company has racked up some pretty hefty board members ahead of the IPO. Former AOL CEO and co-founder Steve Case joined Zipcar’s board as part of the most recent funding round. John Mahoney, CFO of office supply chain Staples, is joining the board as well. The company also added Meg Whitman, former eBay chief executive and now partner at storied venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, in February.

The updated filing also indicated that Zipcar brought in $186 million in revenue in 2010, up 42 percent from $131 million in 2009. The company still lost $14 million in 2010 — compared to a loss of around $4 million in 2009. That loss comes from Zipcar’s aggressive acquisition strategy — it has bought several car-sharing services to ramp up its operations in other cities. Zipcar most recently picked up London car-sharing service Streetcar and acquired a minority stake in Spanish car-sharing service Avancar. Zipcar also acquired American rival Flexcar in 2007.

To date, the Cambridge, Mass.-based company has raised $59 million to finance its operations.

VentureBeat reported that Google Ventures was investing an undisclosed sum into RelayRides back in December. It looks like the round is nearly complete — the company still wants to raise an additional $770,000, according to the regulatory filing. The document lists Howard Hartenbaum of August Capital and Joe Krauss of Google Ventures as investors in the round.

RelayRides lets any car owner list their vehicle on a site and rent it out in a way similar to Zipcar’s car-sharing service. Once listed, RelayRides sends a representative to attach a device to the car that lets any other RelayRides member access the car once reserved. The car owner sets the price, which is usually around 10 percent less than other car sharing services, and notes what time of the week the car will be available for rental.

The car owner gets 65 percent of the total rental fee, and RelayRides picks up 15 percent of the fee as a transaction cost. The rest of the rental fee goes toward insurance policies. Borrowers still have to pass a background check that ensures a clean driving record, even though there is an insurance policy in place.

RelayRides has been active in Boston for about nine months now, and the company was founded in November 2008. Zipcar is the site’s obvious competition — which already has wide distribution across the country and plans to go public in the near future. Angel investors accounted for $600,000 of the round, while the remainder of the funding came from Google Ventures and August Capital.

[Photo: pedrosimoes7]

Whitman was able to generate billions of dollars in value for eBay when she became the company’s chief executive in 1998, taking the company from $4.6 million to nearly $8 billion in revenue. But she started to lose her touch as the company began to lose to the likes of online retailer Amazon.com.

Whitman left eBay in 2008 and was replaced by current chief executive John Donahoe. eBay has since shifted its focus from online auctions and sales to its transaction service PayPal. Since then, eBay has had an about face, with revenue growing 5 percent in the fourth quarter last year after revenue from PayPal rose about 22 percent when compared to the same quarter a year earlier.

Whitman also tried running for governor of California, spending more than $100 million of her own money on campaigns. That money and the tech pedigree didn’t pay off, and she went down in flames, losing to Democrat candidate Jerry Brown. Whitman seemed to have lost her touch and couldn’t get a win.

She’ll get a second (or third) chance now after joining Zipcar’s board just before it goes public. Zipcar filed to go public in June last year to raise $75 million. That funding will be used to pay off its debt and spin up its operations in other cities. The company also raised $21 million from Meritech capital, which should help clean up its balance sheet and make the stock more appealing to public investors.

The service is available in most cities, where cars are strewn across the city in special parking spots. Users sign up for a subscription, and then schedule a time and a car to pick up. They receive a card that activates the car and are free to drive it during their scheduled time.

The whole Zipcar team seems pretty excited about the move — despite some of the extra baggage Whitman is carrying around. Whitman likened Zipcar to eBay, saying that eBay “transformed how people think about retail by allowing consumers to buy and sell goods through online auctions.” That was a good ride — but only for a while.

[Photo: tracie7779]

Zipcar is essentially a streamlined car rental service that lets people rent cars by the hour. It’s available in most cities where the cars are strewn across the city in special parking spots. Users sign up and then schedule a time and a car to pick up through the company’s website. They receive a card that activates the car and are free to drive it during their scheduled time.

Zipcar still lost $2.5 million in its last quarter. The company hasn’t been profitable since the fourth quarter last year, when it made $1.3 million off $36 million in revenue. That was also the only quarter the company hasn’t lost money going back to its first quarter of 2008. Most of the cost has come from “fleet operations,” the cost of the company’s staff and maintaining leases and expenses for vehicles.

But its revenue has been steadily increasing. It made about $58 million in 2007, about $84 million in 2008, and brought in $131 million last year. The company has posted around 40 percent year-over-year growth each quarter this year.

The company’s been on a bit of a spending spree, which materializes as a loss on its balance sheets. Zipcar most recently picked up London car-sharing service Streetcar and acquired a minority stake in Spanish car-sharing service Avancar. Zipcar also acquired American rival Flexcar in 2007. The expansions have been funded by a healthy dose of venture capital. To date, the Cambridge, Mass.-based company has raised $59 million to finance its operations.

The company filed to go public earlier this year in order to raise $75 million. The funding was intended to help spin up their operations and pay off debt. To get around the slight losses each quarter Zipcar has also gone through six rounds of funding. It recently closed a round of funding worth $21 million to help pad its balance sheet before it finally goes public sometime next year.

The service is available in most cities, where cars are strewn across the city in special parking spots. Users sign up for a subscription, and then schedule a time and a car to pick up. They receive a card that activates the car and are free to drive it during their scheduled time.

What’s slightly peculiar is why the company felt it needed to raise additional venture capital funding. The company filed to go public earlier this year in order to raise $75 million. The funding was intended to help spin up their operations and pay off debt.

It seems the company’s been on a bit of a spending spree, which may be hampering its ability to pull in a decent income. Zipcar most recently picked up London car-sharing service Streetcar and acquired a minority stake in Spanish car-sharing service Avancar. Zipcar also acquired American rival Flexcar in 2007.

All the expansions have so far been funded with a healthy dose of venture capital. To date, the Cambridge, Mass.-based company has raised $59 million to finance its operations. Zipcar will use the funding to expand its fleet and strengthen its balance sheet ahead of its initial public offering.

Then again, Zipcar has been losing money for some time now. It lost around $14.5 million in 2007 and 2008, and around $4.5 million last year. It lost about $5 million in the first quarter of this year. Its revenue has been steadily increasing, though. It made about $58 million in 2007, about $84 million in 2008, and brought in $131 million last year. So when the company does go public, it’s going to probably try to pad its balance sheet to appeal to investors.

Former AOL CEO and co-founder Steve Case will join the Zipcar board as part of the deal. John Mahoney, CFO of office supply chain Staples, is joining the board as well. Pinnacle Ventures also participated in Zipcar’s most recent round of funding.

Google Ventures has instead invested an undisclosed sum into RelayRides, a car-sharing service similar to Zipcar, to help it launch in San Francisco today. August Capital also took part in the company’s first round of fundraising.

It’s a service that lets anyone list their car on the web site for rental like other city-based car-sharing services. The car owner sets the price, which is usually around 10 percent less than other car sharing services, and what time of the week the car will be available for rental, said RelayRides CEO Shelby Clark. The owner then gets 65 percent of the total rental fee, and RelayRides takes a 15 percent cut. The other 20 percent goes toward a pretty sizable insurance policy — just in case someone crashes your car into a wall.

Borrowers will still have to pass through a verification process to ensure they have a clean driving record before they get rolling. Once that’s done, the RelayRides experience is basically identical to other car-sharing services. After an owner lists his or her car on the site, RelayRides will come out and install a device on the car to detect cards that activate the service.

The owner is still responsible for maintaining, cleaning and taking care of the car. So it does beg the question of whether there’s a hidden cost in the service here. Clark said car owners get around $250 each month from renting out their car to RelayRides members, with some users getting as much as $600 to $700. He said the owner would be paying for maintenance anyway, but that doesn’t factor in wear and tear from the additional usage the car might see as a result of other RelayRides users borrowing the car.

RelayRides has been active in Boston for about six months now, and the company was founded in November 2008. It’s competing with Zipcar, which has been around for some time now and has a few hundred cars strewn across San Francisco.

Photos: Center for Neighborhood Technology, Felix Kramer

Wind farm developer First Wind Holdings is planning a $300 million IPO for this week, Reuters reports. Look for more on this story on the GreenBeat today.

Subsidies for ethanol are slowly losing federal support– instead, the government is looking to boost next-generation biofuels by supporting infrastructure like biofuel pumps and flexible-fuel vehicles, the New York Times reports. The current tax on imported ethanol would also be phased out under new plans.

The utility-scale solar photovoltaic market will grow five times faster than the rest of the industry, according to a new report by IMS Research. First Solar, a thin-film solar giant that specializes in utility-scale projects, is set to benefit. The company recently announced plans to expand production capacity  to 2.7 gigawatts by the end of 2012. IMS predicts the company’s shipments will grow 25 percent and its market share will shrink to around 8 percent.

BMW is offering hourly rentals of its car in a pilot program that looks to take advantage of the popularity of Zipcar-like services, Earth2Tech reports. If it’s successful, the carmaker will expand the program across Europe.

San Antonio, Tex. has become the first water district to use a sewage-to-biogas system, CleanTechnica reports. The city will channel the methane produced in sewage systems to a commercial gas pipeline, where it can be used as a power source.

Are you a green executive or entrepreneur? If so, sign up now for GreenBeat 2010 — the year’s seminal conference on the smart grid — November 3-4 at Stanford University. World leaders in smart grid initiatives will debate how the new “Super Grid” is creating huge opportunities in cars, energy storage, and renewables. GreenBeat 2010 is hosted by VentureBeat and SSE Labs of Stanford University. Go here for full conference details and to apply for the 2010 Innovation Competition.

Last year, Zipcar acquired a minority stake in Spanish car-sharing service Avancar.

Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Zipcar did say in a press release that Streetcar vehicles will be rebranded as Zipcars. That’s the same approach Zipcar took when it acquired American rival Flexcar in 2007. The acquisition will boost the total number of Zipcar members from 360,000 to 400,000-plus, with members allowed to rent Zipcars in the U.S., UK and Canada.

Europeans generally get the credit for inventing car clubs. But Streetcar, founded in 2004, postdates Zipcar, which was founded in 2000 by Robin Chase and Antje Danielson, two women with ties to MIT and Harvard. Benchmark Capital led a $10 million funding round for Zipcar in 2005. GE’s Commercial Finance Fleet Services gave the company $20 million in lease line financing in 2006.

But it hasn’t been all growth for Zipcar. The company lost its partnership with XM satellite radio in 2007, after originally winning points with car-sharers for stocking its cars with upmarket satellite radio systems instead of entry-level AM/FM radios. In 2008, the combined Zipcar/Flexcar withdrew its fleets from Los Angeles and San Diego. The company now has an iPhone app that can remotely unlock some of its cars. But satellite radio was way cooler.

(Disclosure: Paul Boutin has been a Zipcar member since 2006.)