Ahmed Mhiri is the Founder and CEO of TravelCar, a Founder Institute Paris portfolio company launched in 2012. Now TravelCar has been acquired by the French auto manufacturer Groupe PSA, which had previously invested in the startup two years earlier. While terms for the acquisition have not been disclosed, TravelCar has previously closed funding rounds totaling more than $22MM, including the $15MM series B in February 2017 where Groupe PSA joined the round for a prior 22% stake in the company.
TravelCar is a peer-to-peer car sharing service designed around the needs of travelers, with more than 5000 convenient pickup and dropoff locations at airports and train stations in over 60 countries around the world. With TravelCar, drivers can rent in a smart way, and vehicle owners can quit paying long term parking fees while on travel.
The concept is simple: allow travelers to park cheap or free at the airport - and even let them earn money while away traveling by renting their car to other travelers. It’s a win-win situation: car owners park their car for free while travelers can rent for up to 70% less than traditional car rental. TravelCar manages the entire process, and the owner’s vehicle is completely covered by the company’s comprehensive vehicle insurance protection.
According to Brigitte Courtehoux, Senior Vice President for Connected Services and New Mobility Solutions at Groupe PSA,
With a million users, TravelCar is a major success. Through this acquisition, we are stepping up our support for the company and demonstrating our commitment to developing an efficient, sustainable mobility services ecosystem.
Mobility-as-a-Service is a clear trend in auto transportation.
This is not Groupe PSA’s first acquisition in “MaaS” (Mobility-as-a-Service). The French auto manufacturer also purchased a real-time mobility services comparison app called Free2Move around the same time they placed their first investment in TravelCar, in February of 2017. Today, Free2Move helps 1.5 million users in 12 countries to find nearby shared cars, scooters, and bikes, compare prices, and reserve their transport directly within the app.
With investors preparing for Uber and Lyft IPOs in 2019, and other auto manufacturers like Ford already preparing to make major business adjustments like operating entire fleets of autonomous vehicles for future ride hailing services, it makes sense for all automobile manufacturers to be looking very closely at new trends in vehicle services.
TravelCar of course offers a very different kinds of services than Uber/Lyft ride-hailing. And Groupe PSA’s interest in acquiring TravelCar could mean any number of different things about the manufacturer’s vision for the future of car ownership. But Groupe PSA appears confident that consumers will continue to take car transportation to and from airports and train stations into future - no matter who (or what) is behind the wheel (or owns the vehicle).
Even as services are the clear trend in autos, TravelCar Founder Mhiri himself has demonstrated his own nuanced view for the future of car ownership. Much like an Uber driver who owned their vehicle before starting to drive for the service, Mhiri believes people will continue to want to own cars, while also wanting to extract maximum value out of them, saying,
As consumers look for ways to save, owning a car becomes less important. That means carsharing will continue to grow as the preferred mobility option. We understand that people have a big attachment to their car. The comfort of working with an international, customer-centric company with a successful track record of more than five years with high customer satisfactions ratings cannot be overstated.
For service providers, networks are often the unfair advantage.
There is much to be learned from Mhiri and TravelCar’s startup success story, particularly about the critical importance for many companies to form strong business partnerships. No doubt TravelCar’s 1 million users is of enormous value, but arguably even more valuable is the company's partner network of more than 5000 transit hubs. This network around the world will certainly offer Groupe PSA a new advantage in the unknown future of automobile sales.
Ahmed Mhiri’s ability to succeed in building such a huge international partner network is what makes TravelCar so interesting, not so much its core technology. Mhiri is a Tunisian engineer who arrived to the startup world from a career in Project Management, with companies including CertEurope and Keynectis. But whatever skill he brought initially to his startup, it was his team's ability to partner so effectively in scaling the venture that formed the foundation for TravelCar's success. Further illustrating its hugely international footprint is the fact TravelCar had not even arrived to the United States until after it had closed its series B, opening its first U.S. location at LAX as recently as June of 2017. Today TravelCar offers parking and rental services at airports across the United States.
Mhiri for his part has every right to be excited for his company to take its next step with Groupe PSA, saying,
We are proud and delighted to be able to write the next chapter of the company’s history with Groupe PSA and all of the TravelCar teams, and are very excited about working on the many innovative solutions that such an alliance will enable us to offer our users.
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