IPO-pedia | The world's largest car sharing marketplace Turo files for IPO

Turo, an online platform for peer-to-peer car sharing, filed on Monday with the SEC to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering. It plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol TURO.

Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Allen & Company, and Citi are the joint bookrunners on the deal.

Turo, founded in 2009, is an online platform for peer-to-peer car sharing. It is the world’s largest car sharing marketplace, according to the prospectus.

Through its platform, hosts can list vehicles, adjust their availability, and dynamically modify prices to access demand patterns in their market. Also, guests can search by location, type, price, use case, and other categories to find vehicles for their needs.

As of September 30, 2021, Turo had over 85,000 active hosts and 160,000 active vehicle listings in over 7,500 cities, as well as 1.3 million active guests participating in its marketplace.

Turo has a strategic partner in automaker Daimler, with ties solidified through both an investment by Daimler in the car-sharing startup and through the acquisition by Turo of Croove, Daimler’s own Turo-like subsidiary.

The funding is part of a new $92 million Series D round raised by Turo, which was also led by South Korean giant SK Holdings.

Turo booked $330 million in revenue for the 9 months ended September 30, 2021, representing 207% growth from $107.8 million for the same period in 2020.

It generated a net loss of $129.3 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2021, compared to $51.7 million for the same period in 2020.

The increase in revenue was driven by a 163% increase in Days booked combined with a 40% increase in Gross Booking Value per day.

Days and GBV per day increased increased due to surging demand in travel as a result of increased accessibility of COVID-19 vaccines, lifting of travel restrictions, increased consumer comfort with travel, etc.