A platform to match car hirers with local car owners and change the way we use cars forever.
Business overview
| Location | London, United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Social media | |
| Website | www.hiyacar.co.uk |
| Sectors | Automotive & Transport Mixed Digital/Non-Digital B2C |
| Company number | 08690056 |
| Incorporation date | 13 Sep 2013 |
Idea
Introduction
HiyaCar is the Airbnb for motor vehicles with all insurance barriers overcome.
HiyaCar is a person to person car sharing platform for car hire between people. It aims to turn the millions of private cars sitting idle on drives and streets into a virtual fleet of cars for hire. This gives hirers more choice, convenience and value for money, whilst car owners are able to turn their car into a second source of income that could even pay for the cost of the car. HiyaCar aims to disrupt the $60bn global car hire industry, which in the UK consisted of 10 million car hires last year.
The HiyaCar platform promotes ‘access over ownership and brings environmental and macro economic benefit as part of the wider sharing economy. This resulted in tax breaks being granted by UK tax authorities, allowing vehicle owners £1,000 of tax free income.
Intended impact
The Sharing Economy is a relatively new market but is quoted as potentially having the biggest impact on society since the Industrial Revolution. It’s having a hugely positive impact environmentally because sharing is both sustainable and maximises the utility of cars. People to people hires should lead to less cars being on the road through reducing car ownership, which will lower traffic and lower emissions, helping both drivers and the environment. Research shows that for every car shared, 17 new private cars are taken off the road.
- Problems for Car Hirers -
The cost of traditional car hire can be a barrier to hiring for most people and reduces hire frequency. Choice is often limited, making car hire functional and transactional. The traditional car hire industry has a reputation for bad customer service (due to its transactional nature) and has damaged consumer trust. The inconvenience of scheduling and hiring a car also reduces hire frequency. This means the 10 million UK car hires completed now is lower than what we expect the number of hirers will be when P2P is at critical mass.
- Problems for Car Owners -
High ownerships costs are always an issue because cars are expensive to purchase, maintain, and insure. They also depreciate in value rapidly which is a big cost for people when they come to sell their car and find they have lost a lot of money. Many people are under financial pressure from inflation, interest rate rises and increasing rents which compounds living costs and the need for extra income. Utilisation of cars is low, particularly in city areas (our target market) and they can be hard to find parking for. There is also a lacking sense of community in urban areas which can make for for a less pleasant, isolated way of life and for most car owners their car remains unused for the majority of each day. All of these problems make the opportunity to a second source of income appealing.
- The Solution -
A platform that enables car hire between people.
For car owners: Their vehicle can now make them money and connect them to local people. The average car is used for 1 hour a day so HiyaCar lets owners make money by hiring out their car when it’s not being used. For example, if a £15,000 second hand Audi A5 was hired out just 6 days a month at £80.00 a day, the owner would make an extra £4,608 a year.
For hirers: HiyaCar gives people low cost access to a good choice of cars, with the convenience of local pick up and friendly service. This can only be achieved because of a one-of-a-kind insurance policy that has been specifically created for HiyaCar by Aon/Axa.
Substantial accomplishments to date
Working closely with Aon and Axa, we overcame the previously insurmountable barrier of insurance. Our policy is underwritten by Axa, in a bespoke agreement, enabling an early-mover advantage, superior prices compared to competitors and a barrier to market entry.
Other milestones and capital raised to date include:
· AA roadside recovery in place
· The platform is currently live, with car hires successfully completed
· Web platform live, with a mobile app go live in Q2 2016
· Database with over 10,000 members nationwide and 1,500 members in London, our launch market
· Month over month growth in cars listed for hire and driver signups
· Skilled management team and NEDs
· Played an integral role in achieving the world’s first sharing economy tax break so our members can make £1,000 of tax-free income each year
http://www.thememo.com/2016/03/17/budget-sharin...
· £301k equity capital raise completed August 2015
We are active members of Sharing Economy UK (nationwide trade body) (http://www.sharingeconomyuk.com/) and UKShareCo (http://www.ukshare.co)
Monetisation strategy
HiyaCar is a platform that monetises both sides - the car owners and the hirers. HiyaCar receives 30% of the hire fee charged by owners (20% from Super shares or early adopters.) HiyaCar also receives a £3 booking fee and insurance payment from the hirer. The average daily hire is currently achieving nearly £80. This means £27 for HiyaCar per car per day.
HiyaCar offers capital efficient scalability due to its ‘virtual fleet’ of cars provided by owners, instead of buying cars like traditional hire car companies and car clubs like ZipCar. This also means a greater choice of cars than regular car hire. Our exclusive peer-to-peer insurance policy with Axa enables this business model both in the UK and overseas when required.
HiyaCar’s mission is to give communities around the world the freedom to have a better life with a vision to create the world’s largest car hire community.
Use of proceeds
Our first round of funding last year was extremely successful, so much so that we had to decline some investments pledged late on by the Seedrs community. We are excited to list on Seedrs again, to give current shareholders a chance to reinvest and for those who missed the chance previously, the opportunity to invest and be a part of the HiyaCar journey.
We have used our limited resources to develop the platform, build automated interactions with our insurance provider and identity checking service, test two geographical markets (regional vs inner city), create marketing collateral and alto to test distribution channels to optimse unit economics. We are also near completion on our mobile app.
Having launched in London with growth that surpassed expectations we are raising capital to increase member density in London, unlock more boroughs and develop a blueprint for expansion into new cities new year.
· Sales & marketing
· Continued platform development
· Hiring of more staff
· Fast tracking Hard Technology plans to allow for keyless car access.
Further capital of approximately £2m will be required next year to drive national and international expansion using the blueprint we are able to develop this year in London.
Market
Target market
Primary target audience of 25-35 year olds in London who are early adopters of the Sharing Economy who either don’t own a car or aspire to use different vehicles for different occasions. Such people who use ZipCar or Uber for shorter journeys and use HiyaCar for day trips or long weekends away. In total, 39% of adults in inner London have a licence and access to a car, whilst 24% have a licence but no car. There are 2.56 million cars registered in London with around 54% of London households owning at least one car.
Secondary target audience will be the tourism market, by creating partnerships with airports and other peer-to-peer travel platforms.
HiyaCar has identified the below reasons for why the above target audience hire vehicles via the platform.
1. Drivers can access a car without the hassle of owning a vehicle.
2. Travellers can hire cars appropriate to location while travelling - the right car for the right terrain.
3. 24/7 customer support and opening times.
4. Join a community and get to know your car owner.
5. Contribute to a person rather than a corporate brand.
6. Drivers get a luxury driving experience not previously affordable.
7. Customers access cars fit for the occasion - a first date, a wedding, a birthday weekend.
8. City dwellers, who normally don’t have the space for parking, can drive cars.
Members also join the HiyaCar community to list their vehicles and become a part of our virtual fleet. The below reasons highlight a small selection of why people hire out their own vehicle.
1. They have purchased a car they cannot quite afford so require the additional income.
2. Lets owners hire out their car so it doesn’t just sit on the driveway costing money.
3. The dream car just became affordable with the help of added HiyaCar income.
4. Lets you give something to the community and join the growing sharing economy.
5. Owners meet drivers and make friends, forming new, community-driven relationships.
6. Lets owners achieve a lifestyle not previously possible through additional income.
7. Members who appreciate the cost of ownership.*
*From research carried out, cost of ownership (per hour), based on a £20,000 Audi A5 or BMW 3 series, 2 years old and driven 10,000 miles a year = £26.62 per hour driven!
Characteristics of target market
There are currently 37.7 million UK residents with full driving licences and 29.1 million cars licensed in the UK. This effectively means there are 8.7 million UK residents with a licence that don't own a car. PwC has calculated that on a global basis the Sharing Economy is currently worth £9bn, with this set to rise to a massive £230bn by 2025. In the UK, transport and tourism are amongst the largest categories within this sector. In addition there is also currently approximately $10bn of value tied up in idle car capacity.
We believe that the market timing is perfect for HiyaCar as technology advances further enhance our scaleable platform. Currently these advances includes car tracking and integrations with our third parties for insurance, roadside recovery and identity verification plus we are looking at remote vehicle access for the future. With 66% of adults in the UK now owning a smartphone to transact from and over 25% of UK adults using sharing economy services, consumers are increasingly gravitating to on-demand consumption and are comfortable with the notion of using things owned by other people. Growth of services like Airbnb have increased public receptiveness to the sharing, peer-to-peer model and the new customer behaviour needed for success. This is topped off with the £1,000 tax free income announcement in the recent budget.
Marketing strategy
HiyaCar will be focused on London, concentrating on member acquisition through several channels that enable hyper-targeting. This enables us to saturate selected postcodes / boroughs that we have identified as hotspots. We have differentiated messages and marketing collateral for targeting Drivers or Sharers to generate optimal results. Recognising Brand Ambassadors who will act as our ‘Superstars’, educating their social groups about the benefits of HiyaCar, will also continue to play a key role in building our community.
HiyaCar has spent Q1 testing messaging via Search and Paid Marketing to discover what attracts Drivers and Sharers so we understand our market better and conversions will be more cost effective especially as we scale. Lead generation via email marketing will also play an important role in building our membership.
With HiyaCar’s London focus, we aim to position HiyaCar as the car community for Londoners through content that provides real value to the reader and keeps what makes HiyaCar unique at the core of everything: it’s all about the people.
Social media activity and strong content should keep our members engaged with the brand more frequently, rather than just when they need a car or receive a booking. Our blog content is searchable, shareable and can be tailored for specific audiences. It can be used as part of both our inbound and outbound marketing strategy. We will also introduce the world to Blu, our talking car, who already has its own video (https://youtu.be/kOd6SJ94t7Y), website (http://bluthecar.com/) and twitter handle @bluthecar. The objective of Blu is to be more cheeky and opinionated than HiyaCar can, yet still educate our members about car sharing.
In Q2 we launch our referral programme, designed to generate new Drivers and car Sharers, whilst engaging existing members of the community. The referral programme will expedite network effects via word of mouth and help us recognise potential brand ambassadors.
Finally London PR will be used for brand awareness and education. HiyaCar will be working with an expert who specialises in new, disruptive transportation PR.
Competition strategy
We believe we have a product and technology advantage over our competitors. For example we are the only UK peer-to-peer platform as far as we're aware offering owners a Telematics box and have the strongest insurance underwriters, combined with market pricing for hirers and a strong revenue share with our owners. We have also developed a strong focus on brand and ambassadors in the community itself, who improve engagement, trust and perpetuate network effects.
HiyaCar’s goal is to move quickly and extend our current position in London while we continue to pursue ways of integrating different forms of technology to allow for frictionless and instant car ‘hiyas’ between members. We will then look to scale this model nationwide and overseas very quickly.
We passed many milestones since seed funding in August 2015, UK peer-to-peer car hire came to market behind the U.S. where insurance policies enabled the proposition sooner. Despite this U.S companies like Turo and Getaround, both of which have been trading for longer than HiyaCar and raised more investment are not significantly ahead. This was identified and seen first hand when CEO Graeme Risby visited San Francisco on a UK trade Investment assisted trip and met up with the founders. He learned of the areas where they used capital inefficiently and benefited from their extended period of learning. HiyaCar intends on being the last peer-to-peer car hire company to market globally, very much like Google (Yahoo & Ask Jeeves being a few of the first) were the last search engine to market.
Our London fleet is already 40% of the size of our biggest competitors’ cars listed for hiya in London and we aim to have more cars listed in London than all of our competitors (traditional car hire, car clubs and peer-to-peer companies) by May 2017.
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