One of the first startups I came across is part of the vibrant Israeli contingent that shows up at TC Disrupt. They’ve done pretty well over the last few years with BillGuard making it to the Battlefield finals last year, and Soluto winning it all in 2010. I met briefly with Moti Kahana, the founder of rent2buy. His startup combines peer-to-peer car sharing with car purchasing.
Moti, by the way, has relocated to New Jersey after selling his previous Israeli-based peer-to-peer car rental service to a company called Hertz.
Anyway, with his latest venture he allows used car buyers the chance to rent the car they intend to buy from the owner. That way they get to try that Porsche or Lamborghini.
If the renter eventually buys the car, the owner takes the rental price off the purchase. And from what I understood, rent2buy takes a percentage of the daily rental rate, but leaves out the ultimate sale transaction from their business model.
I thought the idea made sense for high-end cars, which is rent2buy’s initial market. The service is just rolling out, and should be available in NYC tri-state area soon.