Two investors just bought into the ride at RVshare, as the COVID-19 pandemic drives record growth at the RV rental startup.
On Tuesday, RVshare announced it raised $100 million in an investment led by KKR, with participation from Tritium Ventures. CEO Jon Gray said the funds will continue to lift the number of bookings at RVshare, as more people look for safe ways to vacation amid the pandemic.
“We’ve seen a huge acceleration and growth coming from COVID,” Gray told Built In. “Leading into the summer, when people started to think about traveling again, they put a premium around control. RVs offer you a tremendous amount of control.”
Founded in 2013, RVshare is an Akron, Ohio-based sharing economy startup that opened its Austin office five years after its launch. Over the next year, the 75-person company aims to grow its 15-person Austin office by at least 10 people, hiring software engineers, product developers, marketers and more. The expanded staff will help continue to build and market RVShare as an accessible vacation alternative compared to flying, camping or staying in a hotel.
“When you travel with an RV, you bring your kitchen with you, you bring your bed with you, you bring your bathroom with you, it’s air conditioned,” Gray said. “Relative to the alternative of going camping and sleeping on the ground, or staying in a crowded hotel, it’s just particularly a wonderful choice for right now.”
Although the pandemic initially slowed RVshare’s bookings in March, business picked up in the summer, with the number of transactions processed through the platform nearly tripling compared to the year before. In the fall, the number of transactions doubled. Now, not even winter could slow the startup’s growth, Gray said — traditionally the company’s slow season, Gray said he expected RVshare bookings to continue to increase as people pledged to visit their families over the holidays.
“What I believe the pandemic’s done is fast forwarded the adoption and usage of our category by about five years because a lot of people who may not have considered an RV trip are now considering it,” Gray said.
RVshare now counts more than 100,000 RVs listed on its platform, and has processed more than two million trips. The startup has also raised a total of $150 million in venture funds to date and plans to invest the new cash in features that “make it as easy to book an RV as it is to book a hotel room,” Gray said.
Other companies, like Austin-based Outdoorsy, also offer peer-to-peer RV rentals. But RVshare is looking to differentiate itself from the competition by marketing its offering as an elevated experience to remember that’s more on the level of, say, a glamping trip or a stay at a beachfront hotel.
“We want to be top of mind in travel consideration,” Gray said. “When families sit down to think about planning their family vacation, I want them to think about, ‘Maybe we go to Disneyland, stay in a hotel; maybe we stay on the beach in a beach house; or maybe we go visit the national parks and take an RV.’”
