Kyte, which billed itself as the ‘best competitor to Hertz,’ shuts down

Rental car startup Kyte has shut down nearly one year after slashing staff and exiting most of its cities in the United States. The company sold its customer list to Turo in July, and then turned right around and entered into a form of receivership in California, according to a notice that went out to Kyte creditors.

Kyte fell behind on some of its loans earlier this year, according to the notice. That caused the company’s top lender to repossess and liquidate Kyte’s vehicle fleet.

Kyte’s board of directors “pursued various capital solutions” to keep the company alive, the notice states. But the company wasn’t able to line up financing and the board voted to wind down Kyte.

While Kyte passed its customer list to Turo, a number of users who had pre-booked trips before the shutdown have complained that they’re stuck waiting on refunds for hundreds of dollars.

Some who spoke to TechCrunch said they were able to get their credit card companies to perform a chargeback, while others have had no luck. Kyte CEO Nikolaus Volk told TechCrunch in a message that chargebacks may be the quickest way for customers to get that money back.

Founded in 2019, Kyte provided on-demand rental cars that it also delivered directly to customers’ homes. It controlled its own fleet of vehicles, making it a bit more like ZipCar and less like the peer-to-peer offerings of players like Turo. Kyte grew to 14 markets and raised more than $300 million in financing over its lifetime, and started billing itself as the “best competitor to Hertz.”

The business started coming apart in 2024, Volk told TechCrunch last year. Kyte was struggling to generate free cash flow in markets like Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Volk said his team explored selling the business, but decided to restructure and focus on reaching profit in the two biggest markets of San Francisco and New York City.

Kyte’s not the only startup in this sector to run into trouble — especially in the United States. Getaround, another peer-to-peer vehicle rental service, shuttered its U.S. operations in February of this year to focus on its European business. TrueCar founder Scott Painter pivoted away from vehicle subscriptions in 2024 after struggling to build up a business called Autonomy.