Kyte raises $9 million

Kyte, the San Francisco-based startup that offers a delivery and pick up service for car rentals, has raised $9 million from DN Capital and Amplo VC, with participation from former Uber executives including Ed Baker (former VP of Product) and Jörg Heilig (former VP of Engineering), Josh Mohrer and William Barnes as well as Toby Sun (co-founder, Lime) and Terry Jones (co-founder, Kayak and Travelocity).

Launched in late 2018, Kyte which operates in Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco, built a vehicle-as-a-service platform that helps fleet owners virtualize their fleets, share their assets and deploy them to where they’re needed. “We partner with existing professionally managed fleets, allowing us to focus solely on perfecting the consumer experience and building technology – not on managing assets,” Kyte states. The startup allows a user to book a car via its app or website and once booked, a ‘Kyte Surfer‘ (think: gig worker) delivers the car to the user’s home. At the end of the rental period the car is picked up, eliminating the need for users to visit rental locations and wait in line.

Kyte claims that clients – ‘the biggest rental car companies in the country’ – are willing and enthusiastic participants since the bulk of their operations are at airports and the solutions help get vehicles in the hands of customers.

“We believe that Kyte is going to be a core building block to the future of mobility. The pandemic has accelerated the transformation of cities and consumer behavior with respect to transportation. Kyte’s unique operations layer facilitates this transformation while providing a level of service and convenience that other solutions fail to meet. We are excited to help the Kyte team, with our investment, to accelerate delivery of this solution to more people in more places.” – Steve Schlenker, Co-Founder and Managing Director, DN Capital.