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

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.

This is a guest post by entrepreneur Justin Elof Johnson.

I hop in a car from Lyft, the on-call ride-sharing startup in San Francisco, and I start talking with the driver. She’s a 26-year-old with a Master’s degree and has worked for startups for a few years. A few months ago, she left her job to take some time to figure out what’s next and learn to code.

To make ends meet, she did some research about part-time work. She started out by putting her room on Airbnb and doing a couple tasks a week via TaskRabbit. Now she’s driving her car a couple days a week on Lyft. The combination of these three things is making her more money than she made working full time. Plus, she feels like she’s working for herself without the risk of starting her own company.

Most of the people I meet who are on the supply side of the sharing economy are working between jobs or to using these services to supplement their incomes. Thought these conversations, I have a feeling 2013 is going to be a year where we start to hear about people leaving full-time employment to do a combination of different shared services so they can have a more flexible schedule.

To get a better understanding of these trends, I chatted with several folks from TaskRabbit, Airbnb, Lyft, and Getaround. They are all growing rapidly, expanding to new markets, and on-boarding as many new “sharers” as they can, as fast as they can.

For example, Johnny Brackett of TaskRabbt told me that the company currently has more than 4,000 “Rabbits” on-boarded to their platform and have a waiting list of more then 10,000 people waiting to offer their services to local communities.

Logan Green, CEO and co-founder of Lyft, is tight-lipped about specific statistics involving his community, but he told me that the people signing up to drive for Lyft run the full gambit of backgrounds and experience. He gave me one example of a preschool teacher who is a Lyft driver in her spare time so she can get some adult interactions and a PHD student who drives to get his mind off research for a little bit.

Meg Murray, a marketer at Getaround, said the company has more then 10,000 cars listed for rent on their platform with the average active renter making around $350 per month, and one renter making as much as $1,300 per month.

The average worker for TaskRabbit runs two to three tasks per day and earns $45. A highly specialized Rabbit can make much more per task and bring in as much as $6000 per month.

Airbnb communications pro Emily Joffrion tells me that the company has more than 250,000 properties listed in 34,000 cities across 192 countries around the world. I also got some specific information about San Francisco. Emily tells me that occasional renters in the city can make between $6,900 and $9,300 annually. I also know from experience that at least three friends of mine living in SF at minimum cover their rent by putting rooms on AirBnB. Sometimes they make more.

So based on these numbers we can make some assumptions about what a person should be able to make doing tasks for the whole of 2013. Let’s say this is a woman in San Francisco with no traditional job who is willing to work in the shared economy up to 40 hours per week and has an apartment and a four-door car.

• Renting her apartment out occasionally on Airbnb, she can make: $667/month or $8,000/year
  
• Doing two to three tasks per day on TaskRabbit five days a week, she can make: $2,000/month or $24,000/year
• Lyft told me driving part-time she could make: $750/month or $9000/year
• When not using her car, she can supplement income from Getaround: $350/month and do as needed

Based on these numbers, an individual with no specialized skills should be able to make an average of $41,000 per year. If he or she has specialized skills, the opportunity could be much greater.

Considering people trying to do this get to make and manage their own schedules and effectively be their own boss, this could be an enticing number. I don’t see why it couldn’t be a regular thing to hear people start saying, “I left my job to do tasks on TaskRabbit and drive for Lyft.”

Justin Johnson is an entrepreneur and the founder of Late Labs. You can contact Justin on Twitter (@elof) or hustle@latelabs.com.

Photo via Lyft

In their efforts to bring disruptive new transportation services to urban residents, ride-sharing startups may be fighting a losing battle.

In the face of hefty citations, Lyft, the mobile app that lets you order a moustache-adorned car to pick you up in a matter of minutes, is rallying the San Francisco’s tech scene to speak up in its defense.

Today, the California Public Utilities Commission issued $20,000 fines to Uber, Lyft and SideCar for illegally operating. Among the 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.

It didn’t take long for the community to rally, and urge the authorities to stand down. An email signed by John Zimmer and Logan Green, cofounders of Lyft, has been making the rounds, popping into my inbox twice in the space of an hour.

In the email, the founders made clear that they responded to the CPUC “immediately” and had a positive follow-up meeting.

They also claimed to have gone above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to their liability insurance. The CPUC requires that licensed sedans carry $750,000 of liability coverage, but Lyft implemented a $1 million excess liability policy.

In their own words:

We respect the CPUC’s role in protecting public safety, and we share safety as our top priority. Lyft’s driver screening process uses criteria based on criminal background checks and DMV record checks that are more strict than any other form of transportation. We also have a higher bar for insurance. We will continue to work with the CPUC to ensure our shared goals for consumer safety are met.

The email pleads for the support of anyone with a vested interest in keeping the sharing economy alive. “Peer-to-peer transportation is worth defending and we stand by our community of mustache-sporting Lyfters,” it reads. The authors link to a petition started by a member of Change.org, the online petitioning site that is frequently leveraged by Uber users in its uphill battle against metro transit authorities.

According to the CPCU, startups like Lyft and SideCar are still not in compliance. “If something happens to a passenger while in transport with Lyft, SideCar, or Uber, it is the responsibility of the CPUC to have done everything in its power to ensure that the company was operating safely according to state law,” Brigadier General (CA) Jack Hagan, Director of the CPUC’s Consumer Protection and Safety Division said in a statement.

“That means that the company has insurance to cover an accident and that its employees are protected and are suitable drivers. I look forward to working with these companies to bring them into compliance with our safety laws,” Hagan added.

Top image // Christina Farr, VentureBeat

Getaround has some high-profile supporters. The peer-to-peer car sharing service recently raised $13.9 million from investors like Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer and Google’s Eric Schmidt, and now it’s expanding to Chicago with the help of Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

The idea behind the San Francisco-based startup is to make it safe and easy to take a spin in a stranger’s car. The company launched in 2009 and has grown quickly, expanding to cities like Portland, Ore.; Austin, Texas; San Diego; and now Chicago. It’s signed up over 10,000 car owners across the country. Chicago is its fifth city and is the company’s first foray into the Midwest.

With options including the Toyota Prius or a Tesla Roadster, Getaround offers car rentals from $3 an hour, and car owners make an average of $350 per month from listing their car. It makes money by charging a 40 percent commission — this may seem high, but it’s a darn sight better than leaving an unused car to gather dust in a garage.

The startup competes with Zimride, Relay Rides, and others, but has signed up more cars than any other service and recently eclipsed Zipcar. It’s competitive differentiator is the hardware kit, which lets users unlock a Getaround car with a smartphone.

Emanuel, the former the White House chief of staff to President Barack Obama, said that a service like Getaround is crucial for Chicago’s residents, especially those with a vested interest in reducing traffic and emissions.

“As mayor I am focused on improving all transportation options for Chicagoans,” he said in a statement. “This is another step toward this goal of a comprehensive transportation network and will be a win/win for the city and its residents.”

In addition, Chicago is the second city to beta-test Getaway, the new service that launched in August. It allows car-owners to rent their car out for an extended period of time and is perfect for college students or travelers. On Getaway, car owners are guaranteed $1,000 a month, or Getaround will make up the difference.

“Chicago is a natural fit for Getaround,” added Sam Zaid, the CEO and founder of Getaround (pictured above). “We believe that the city is ready for a new and different way to think about car ownership.”

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.