Europcar Group, the European leader in vehicle rental services and a major actor in mobility markets announced its 20% minority investment, through its Lab (its entity dedicated to innovation) in SnappCar, a peer-to-peer car sharing scale-up. This investment is fully in line with the Group’s ambition to become a global mobility solutions leader, and providing a good alternative to car ownership thanks to a large portfolio of affordable solutions tailored to every specific need. It will enable SnappCar to take peer-to-peer car sharing to its next stage of development in Europe. SnappCar’s ambition is to decrease by 5 million the numbers of owned cars by 2022. With this investment, Europcar joins the consortium of existing shareholders AutoBinck Group and the Danish Startup Studio Founders who have extended their commitment to SnappCar. The total amount of the investment round is € 10 million euros.
These investors are now joining forces with a common ambition to help SnappCar expand geographically within Europe and further improve and innovate its platform usability and services for its members, by for example, introducing ‘keyless technology’, making it possible to open a car through the SnappCar app. SnappCar is a Dutch scale-up and social enterprise created in 2011. It is the second largest international peer-to-peer car sharing player in Europe with more than 250.000 customers sharing over 30.000 cars available on its platform. Today SnappCar is available in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden with the intention to expand to new markets.
The average car is idling for 23 hours per day. SnappCar believes inefficiency leads to waste and wants to make peer2peer car sharing generally accepted by millions of Europeans by enabling them to share their cars in an easy, reliable and fun way. For Europcar Group, this minority investment is an opportunity to develop its mobility offer and enlarge its customer base. The Group believes peer2peer solution has a role to play in cities where it can complement the implementation of a car sharing scheme and in areas in which a car sharing solution is today not still economically sustainable. Peer-to-peer car sharing platforms have a strong need for car availability, and with an average fleet of around 214.000 vehicles in 2016, Europcar can play a significant role.
