Peer-to-Peer Car Sharing Getaround Nabs $3.4 Million Funding

They disrupted TechCrunch Disrupt New York 2011 so much that $3.4 million in seed funding flowed in to Getaround led by the controversial CrunchFund of Michael Arrington. Other investors include Netflix founder Marc Randolph, Time Warner’s largest shareholder Vivi Nevo, Redpoint Ventures, among others.

Getaround enables car owners to “un-idle” their cars and offset the cost of vehicle ownership by sharing with friends, co-workers, and neighbors, while people seeking cars are provided easy, affordable access to vehicles everywhere. The Getaround Carkit combines GPS, Wi-Fi, and keyless remote technology to allow safe and simple sharing of cars and is the first device designed exclusively for peer-to-peer car sharing.

More than 5,000 car owners nationwide have signed up so far to share their car through Getaround.

Jeff Brody, founding partner at Redpoint Ventures, has this to say about Getaround:

“Getaround is a great example of what we look for in a portfolio company—tangible IP that can be efficiently commercialized to address an existing market problem. What Getaround has introduced is a solution that makes car sharing convenient for users, while enabling car owners to make money off their underutilized cars.”

According to Sam Zaid, CEO of Getaround, the funding will be used to build out their platform, produce cutting-edge technology that would make peer-to-peer car sharing even more accessible and to plan the company’s expansion into new communities.

We can only hope that this service do not suffer the bad publicity that’s hounding Airbnb because of unscrupulous members.