Want to take to the open road in an RV, but don’t want to plunk down all the money to buy one?
That’s the problem RVshare solves. The Austin-based company hooks RV owners up with people who want to rent them.
And while the pandemic has punished a lot of businesses, it has been a boon to RVshare, which has more than 100,000 RVs listed on its platform. And it has managed more than two million days booked so far.
That landed RVshare $100 million in venture capital funding led by KKR with participation from existing investors Tritium Partners. The company plans to use the funds raised to expand its business. To date, the company, founded in 2013, has raised $150 million.
RVshare competes with Outdoorsy, another Austin-based company that created a peer to peer RV rental marketplace. It has raised $75.1 million to date.
“At RVshare, our mission is to expand the definition of travel, providing a unique, seamless experience that will allow travelers to build lifelong memories with loved ones,” RVshare’s CEO Jon Gray said in a news release. “I am very proud of our employees and thankful to our customers for helping build RVshare into the market leader it is today – and we are only at the beginning of where our business can go. This financing and the support of KKR’s global platform positions us well to invest in future growth and provide the best experience for our owners and renters.”
“We are thrilled to work together with RVshare to build on the success they have achieved to date as a market leader in an important yet underserved category of travel,” Jake Heller, Co-head of KKR’s Technology Growth team in the Americas, said in a news release. “Jon and team have proven they can deliver explosive growth with impressive capital efficiency and we look forward to leveraging KKR’s global experience and network in mobility, travel and technology to help unlock new opportunities for RVshare.”
RVshare has seen a surge in RV rentals this spring and summer as families take to the road for a getaway. The company has seen the momentum continue going into the fall with bookings up 123 percent over the same time last year.
