In 2017 more than two million motorhomes were registered in Europe. Despite the massive growth in the number of motorhomes, roughly 2 million motorhomes are idle for an average of 11 months per year. A startup named Goboony has decided to get rid of this ‘idle capacity’ of motorhomes. It has raised € 579k for its online camper rental platform on the crowdfunding platform Symbid.
Onboarding key partners
Goboony rented out motorhomes on an average weekly rate of €795 per camper and customers typically rent out a camper for a period of eight weeks. Goboony’s strong growth means that it is able to partner with bigger brands in the space that complement its offering. It recently partnered with MyWheels, a car-sharing platform working in the Netherlands since 1993. MyWheels wants to focus on the further growth of their car sharing platform. The deal enables Goboony to take all campers of MyWheels and rent them out on their own platform.
“We have transferred all the motorhomes on our platform over to Goboony. This way we can make a stronger impact together through our own specialties. By doing so we can more effectively dedicate ourselves to our mission: significantly reducing the number of vehicles in the Netherlands through car sharing,” said Director Karina Tiekstra of MyWheels.
Dressing up for #Carnaval @Goboony ? #justanotherdayatwork pic.twitter.com/F84u6ermBF
— Goboony (@Goboony) February 12, 2018
Goboony’s team was also thrilled by the partnership deal. “The lack of use of motorhomes is even worse than that of cars. The collaboration with car sharing specialist MyWheels will teach us a lot about the hurdles that have to be overcome to make vehicle sharing successful for everyone. We are grateful that they have chosen to share the motorhomes on their platform with us and that we can make use of all their years of experience in the business,” said Goboony co-founder Mark de Vos.
The sharing economy thrives
Ride-sharing, car-pooling, vacation rentals and motorhome sharing are all part of a new wave of ‘sharing economy’ and millions of customers use the services of startups in this space. Still, Uber’s fate looms large on the sustainability of the sharing economy. Uber, the ride-hailing startup reported it lost $708 million in the first three months of 2017. On the other hand, Uber’s European competitors Taxify OU and Daimler AG backed Mytaxi continue to raise bigger rounds.
Goboony’s strong numbers
Goboony raised 290% crowdfunding of its €200k target which shows the community’s confidence in the upstart motorhome rental platform. With this initial traction both from backers and users, Goboony reports 300% growth over the past year. More than 1,600 camp owners shared their camper and 15,000 people spent motorhome holidays. Goboony also aims to realize 1 million campervan holidays.
