Urban mobility startup receives R$4 million investment

In large centers such as São Paulo, New York and Tokyo, the time is getting shorter and for that, it is necessary to optimize the routine. Having your own car has become something to think about, because with traffic jams this ends up being a challenge. In this context of shared economy, Turbi was born, a São Paulo startup that offers cars through an application. There are three categories of vehicles, all automatic, initially available in the city of São Paulo (SP). Faced with this rapidly growing urban mobility market, DOMO Invest decided to lead the investment round in Turbi, which totaled R$ 4 million.

“We are excited about this Smart Money investment from DOMO Invest, as we know the history of its founders and we feel supported by all of them. Our idea is to continue at an accelerated pace of growth, but always with a long-term vision. We intend to take about 12 cars off the street for each vehicle made available and, in our first year of operation alone, we have already managed to expand our customer base by 74%, on average, and have an increasing revenue every month ”, celebrates Diego Lira , the CEO.

The startup emerged from the paradigm of equating the need for mobility in megacities, the costs (taxes and depreciation) that an own car generates and the average time that its own vehicle is stationary (from 90% to 93% of time). The inspiration came from the largest carsharing startup in the world, Zipcar, founded by two MIT students in the year 2000. From there, the founders of Turbi decided to adapt this business model to the Brazilian market, beginning their entrepreneurial journey through the city of São Paulo (SP). The team has the following partners: Diego Lira (CEO), CTO Rafael Gibrail (ex-Mercado Livre) and COO Thiago Mendonça (ex-Alelo).

“Our focus of work, with this contribution, will be to improve the journey of our customers and potential customers. We know the importance of this aspect when choosing Turbi, which is based on the shared economy. With this investment, we also see a 10-fold growth in our fleet over the next 12 months ”, highlights Daniel Prado, the other founding partner.

With the arrival of the new resource, Turbi will bet, in this second semester, on the strong expansion of its fleet in new neighborhoods of the São Paulo capital, always aiming to improve the mobility of its customers. Currently, there are three car categories offered - HB20, Nissan Kicks and Mini Cooper S (all automatic) - and vehicles can be picked up and returned, through the app, in parking lots, hotels and coworking spaces. So far, the startup has had 50,000 downloads of its app and another 5,000 runs, which corresponds to more than 10 laps on Earth.

Turbi is positioned among driver apps, like Uber, 99 and Cabify and car rental companies. The annual turnover of this market corresponds to almost R$ 20 billion and which becomes even greater, when added to a growing market for driver applications, which handles approximately the same amount.

The relationship with DOMO Invest began at the end of last year, when Turbi saw in the Asset de VC the appropriate know-how for this new level of business. After all, the partners of DOMO Invest closely followed the evolution of startups that ended up becoming exponents of performance in their markets, such as Buscapé Company, Loggi, Hotmart, Gympass, among others.

“The topic of urban mobility is one of the main markets on the rise at the moment, given the intense traffic in large cities and Turbi brings a very attractive solution to solve this problem. With our focus on startups dedicated to the end consumer, it made perfect sense to believe in this wave as well and to lead this round of investment in Turbi ”, concludes DOMO Invest partner, Gabriel Sidi.

Source: Startupi