Car-sharing marketplace Turo Inc. has publicly filed for its initial public offering and said that some of the car owners and renters could get a chance to participate in the offering.
Turo, whose marketplace allows private car owners to rent their cars, plans to allocate up to 5% of shares to be sold to some individuals, including hosts and guests who meet certain conditions, under what’s known as a directed-share program.
Often referred to as a friends-and-family program, a directed-share program allows some to buy some shares at the IPO price before the stock begins trading publicly. Uber Technologies Inc. UBER 2.63% offered a similar program to some of its drivers in the U.S.
The company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the planned IPO would include shares sold by Turo and some of its largest shareholders.
Large investors include IAC/InterActiveCorp., led by Chairman Barry Diller, and entities affiliated with August Capital. Turo said its largest shareholders would continue to have a significant influence following the IPO.
San Francisco-based Turo had disclosed in August that it filed documents for a potential IPO, without giving any details, such as who would be the selling stockholders if it ultimately pursued the offering.
The latest securities filing includes a proposed offering amount of $100 million, but that figure is used to calculate filing fees and is often changed.
Revenue for the first nine months of 2021 more than tripled to more than $330 million, compared with the same period in 2020.
The company, which has yet to post an annual profit, said its accumulated deficit stood at $544 million as of Sept. 30, according to the documents.
Turo said that it had more than 85,000 active hosts, more than 160,000 active vehicle listings and 1.3 million active guests in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. as of Sept. 30.
“Our platform avoids the capital intensity and asset-based limitations of the rental-car and fleet-based car-sharing industries, while providing low-cost access for individual car owners to earn extra income by sharing their vehicles through our marketplace,” Turo said, adding that hosts can offer other extras, such as unlimited mileage, camping equipment, or prepaid refueling, for example.
Like other companies in the so-called sharing economy, such as Airbnb Inc., Turo makes money by taking a cut from both the host and the guest.
The company seeks to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TURO.
Write to Maria Armental at [email protected]
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Appeared in the January 11, 2022, print edition as ‘Rental-Car Marketplace Turo Files IPO.’
