Kyte, Which Billed Itself As The ‘best Competitor To Hertz,’ Shuts Down

Rental car startup Kyte has unopen down astir 1 twelvemonth after slashing staff and exiting astir of its cities successful nan United States. The institution sold its customer database to Turo successful July, and past turned correct astir and entered into a shape of receivership successful California, according to a notice that went retired to Kyte creditors.

Kyte fell down connected immoderate of its loans earlier this year, according to nan notice. That caused nan company’s apical lender to repossess and liquidate Kyte’s conveyance fleet.

Kyte’s committee of board “pursued various superior solutions” to support nan institution alive, nan announcement states. But nan institution wasn’t capable to statement up financing and nan committee voted to upwind down Kyte.

While Kyte passed its customer database to Turo, a number of users who had pre-booked trips earlier nan shutdown person complained that they’re stuck waiting connected refunds for hundreds of dollars.

Some who said to TechCrunch said they were capable to get their in installments paper companies to execute a chargeback, while others person had nary luck. Kyte CEO Nikolaus Volk told TechCrunch successful a connection that chargebacks whitethorn beryllium nan quickest measurement for customers to get that money back.

Founded successful 2019, Kyte provided on-demand rental cars that it besides delivered straight to customers’ homes. It controlled its ain fleet of vehicles, making it a spot much for illustration ZipCar and little for illustration nan peer-to-peer offerings of players for illustration Turo. Kyte grew to 14 markets and raised much than $300 cardinal successful financing complete its lifetime, and started billing itself arsenic nan “best competitor to Hertz.”

The business started coming isolated successful 2024, Volk told TechCrunch past year. Kyte was struggling to make free rate travel successful markets for illustration Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Volk said his squad explored trading nan business, but decided to restructure and attraction connected reaching profit successful nan 2 biggest markets of San Francisco and New York City.

Kyte’s not nan only startup successful this assemblage to tally into problem — particularly successful nan United States. Getaround, different peer-to-peer conveyance rental service, shuttered its U.S. operations in February of this year to attraction connected its European business. TrueCar laminitis Scott Painter pivoted distant from conveyance subscriptions successful 2024 aft struggling to build up a business called Autonomy.