Campaign Year: 2017
Campaign Type: AU - Wholesale
Campaign Duration: 69 days
Amount Invested: A$770,000
Number of investors: 24
Average Investment: A$32,678.67
Percentage Funded: 156.9%
What is Car Next Door?
Car Next Door is an online peer-to-peer car-sharing platform operating in four cities, with 50,000 members sharing 1,200+ vehicles.
The company lets Australians access cars on demand, without the costs and upkeep associated with ownership. Access to cars is secure and unattended through a patent-pending method utilising an electronic lockbox with a plug-in GPS tracker and an online booking and payment platform. Rapid growth since an early pilot scheme in 2013 has seen Car Next Door become the second-largest provider of car share services in Australia.
The Founders of Car Next Door became highly aware that a lot of people own a car but often don’t use it. They wanted to find an environmentally and financially friendly solution by creating a car-sharing platform allowing owners to rent their vehicle(s) to borrowers who need it.
The Car Next Door idea is driven by "green motivations" as they work to reduce the amount of carbon emissions released into the atmosphere.
One car produces 44.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide over 10 years. An even higher amount of emissions are created during the manufacturing process. The sharing of underutilised cars reduces the number of vehicles on the road. Research also shows that with car-sharing both borrowers and lenders become more aware of the cost of driving so tend to drive less
Moreover, the emissions created by Car Next Door borrowers are offset by long-term emission reduction projects run by the environmental not-for-profit organisation Greenfleet. The organisation works to restore native forests and biodiversity in Australia.
Having a working and highly scalable platform that was quickly gaining traction, Car Next Door partnered with Equitise to raise A$770,000 from 24 investors, overshooting the initial target by 56.9%. Funds raised were largely allocated to fuel customer acquisition through marketing efforts and enhancing the existing platform, as well as optimising customer conversion, obtaining parking spaces in high demand areas and creating a corporate offering.
Quote from Will Davies, CEO at Car Next Door
"We have worked with Equitise a couple of times now to support the Car Next Door business in its capital raising strategy.
Over both engagements we found the Equitise team to be professional and genuinely passionate in assisting our team yield the results we were looking for.
We hope that one day we may be able to utilise their platform to conduct a full retail offer to the public through equity crowdfunding."
Investor Exit - Car Next Door gets acquired by Uber
It was announced on January 19 2022 that ride-sharing giants Uber had acquired Car Next Door. This means that Equitise investors who participated in Car Next Door's 2018 and 2019 rounds with us were able to get a return on their investment.
This acquisition builds on Uber's ongoing investments in electric vehicles, micromobility, and public transportation in order to reduce dependency on private automobiles and contribute to the creation of greener, more liveable communities. Car Next Door will report to Uber's Australian team after the acquisition, but will otherwise operate independently, with its current leadership team focusing on growing and scaling its technology in other cities across Australia.