Car sharing service Getaround raises $45M Series C from Toyota and others to expand global partnerships
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
Toyota's involvement with Getaround started small: reports in late 2016 put its investment fund's stake at around $10M, a toe-in-the-water check rather than a strategic commitment. The $45M Series C converts that into a named lead relationship, with Getaround explicitly tying the raise to expanding global partnerships.
The round sits early in an arc that escalated fast — a $300M SoftBank-led Series D followed within about a year and a half, then the $300M Drivy acquisition that took Getaround into Europe for the first time. In hindsight, the Toyota-backed global-partnership push was the opening move of that expansion.
First-order effects
- Toyota moves from passive fund investor to strategic backer, gaining visibility into peer-to-peer car sharing as it weighs its own mobility bets; Getaround gets the capital to pursue partnership deals outside the US.
Second-order effects
- A Toyota-branded balance sheet makes Getaround a more credible partner for international fleet owners and cities, pressuring rivals in P2P car sharing to find their own automotive patrons or capital — a gap SoftBank filled by leading the next round.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points to automakers buying optionality in shared mobility through venture stakes instead of building services themselves — but Getaround's later retreat from its US operations to focus on Europe, where the acquired Drivy business operates, shows that heavy strategic capital did not guarantee the home-market model held up.
The trend: Automakers are underwriting car-sharing startups as strategic investors rather than operators, letting the startups absorb the market risk while Toyota and peers keep a seat at the table.