Kyte Shuts Down: New Competitor Threat Emerges

Rental car start -ups have closed almost one year after employee cuts and most of its cities in the United States. The company sold its customer list in July and then turned to the right and entered the form of survival in California, according to a notice It went out to Kyte creditors.

According to the statement, Kyte lagged behind some of her loans earlier this year. This ordered the company’s chief lender to recover and eliminate the Kyte vehicle park.

Kyte Directors’ Council “made various capital solutions” to preserve the company alive, the statement said. The Guess company was unable to sort out the funding and the board voted for the elimination of the detriment.

While Kyte handed over your customer list to Turo, several users Who had previously reserved trips before shutdown have complained that they were stuck waiting for a refund of hundreds of dollars.

Some who spoke to TechCrunch said they were able to make credit card companies repay, guess had no luck to others. Kyte CEO Nicholas Volks TechCrunch told the report that repayment is probably the fastest way for customers to recover this money.

The Kyte, founded in 2019, secured a rental car on demand, which it also supplied customer home. It controlled its vehicle park, making it a little more than Zipcar and less than peer players, such as Turo. Kyte rose to 14 markets and gained more than $ 300 million in funding during its lifetime and began to calculate itself as a “best Hertz competitor”.

The company began to divorce in 2024, Volk said last year. Kyte tried to generate free cash flow in markets such as Atlanta, Chicago, Boston and Washington, DC Volks said his team explored the sale of the business, Geess decided to restructure and focus on making profits in the two largest San Francisco and New York city markets.

Kyte is not the only startup in the industry that is in trouble – especially in the United States. Another peer -to -peer vehicle rental service, Getaround, closed its US operations in February this year to focus on its European business. TrueCar founder Scott Painter in 2024 resigned from subscription of vehicles after trying to build a business called Autonomy.