Peer-to-peer car rental app Turo is in the spotlight after it confirmed the two vehicles used in deadly New Year’s Day attacks in Las Vegas and New Orleans were rented on its platform.
Turo said it was devastated by the events and that it was actively partnering with law enforcement to share any useful information in its investigation.
The company also said it had no reason to believe the suspects renting vehicles on the platform were a threat.
“We do not believe that either renter had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat, and we are not currently aware of any information that indicates the two incidents are related,” the company said in its statement.
San Francisco-based Turo (originally named RelayRides) began as a peer-to-peer car-sharing service in 2010. The company operates an Airbnb-like service where people (known as “hosts”) can rent out their cars to other users of the platform.
To be clear, Turo does not own any of the cars on its service. The company has since expanded across the US and in some global locations and raised around $500 million, according to Crunchbase. The company filed its first initial S-1 form to go public in 2022 and has updated it periodically, though it has not issued a target date for its initial public offering (IPO).
Renting on Turo is relatively easy for users. All Turo requires is a valid driver’s license and home address. Interestingly, users must be over the age of 18 (major car rental operators require renters to be above the age of 25).
Turo operates like traditional rental car operators, but its asset-light business model is the main differentiator.
There are no physical rental locations or even kiosks where people rent vehicles. It’s all done by connecting hosts with users on the Turo platform.
Turo says it “may” ask for additional photos and other information to check personal data such as credit reports, auto insurance scores, or criminal background checks for its users. A Turo spokesperson did not respond when Yahoo Finance asked if Turo performed background checks on the two renters in question.
In its latest S-1 filing from November, the company revealed that by the end of September 2024, Turo hosts had earned $4.8 billion from rentals and that there were 350,000 vehicles available for rent on Turo across 16,000 cities.
Wall Street believes Turo could be a more compelling investment than traditional car rental firms because of the dynamic nature of its pricing — users can adjust pricing on the fly. Turo said it had a net income of $19.4 million in the first nine months of 2024, with adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) of $47.6 million, meaning it is a profitable private company, though these figures have declined compared to 2023.