For nearly 15 years, Turo, the car rental app that investigators say was used in the deadly attack in New Orleans and the vehicle explosion at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, quietly grew as an alternative to traditional rental services such as Hertz and Enterprise.
The company was founded as RelayRides in 2010 and was renamed Turo in 2015. More than 3.5 million people reserved a vehicle through Turo last year, according to a company presentation. As of September, the app had 350,000 vehicle listings in more than 16,000 cities.
Now Turo, which last year was considering an initial public offering on Wall Street, faces uncomfortable attention as a perhaps coincidental link between the two incidents.
The app works similarly to Airbnb, where “hosts” can put their cars on the Turo marketplace for users to rent.
For some users, the app is a cheaper alternative to fleet rental companies found at airports, with many vehicles available for less than $50 a day. Others use the app to rent newer cars at higher prices, such as classic cars, high-end sports cars or Tesla Cybertrucks, like the one used in the Las Vegas explosion.
Like traditional rental services, Turo customers must upload their driver's license, address, and payment information to create an account.
Hosts on Turo range from people who rent their personal vehicle to earn extra income to users who list more than a dozen vehicles and rent them on Turo as a full-time job. Turo offers its hosts liability insurance of up to $750,000. Turo offers coverage to drivers, who are responsible for any damage to the car while it is rented.
In a statement Wednesday, the company said it was “heartbroken by the violence perpetrated in New Orleans and Las Vegas” and was actively working with authorities on both incidents.
“These individuals in question had valid driver's licenses, clean background checks, and were honorably discharged from the U.S. military,” Turo said. “They could have boarded any plane, checked into a hotel, or rented a car or truck from a traditional car rental chain.”
Investigators have so far found no definitive connection between the New Orleans attack and the Tesla explosion in Las Vegas, but law enforcement officials said they were still looking for links between the incidents.
Turo was founded in Boston by Shelby Clark, who served as CEO, and later moved to San Francisco, where it is headquartered. Its initial investors were Google Ventures, August Capital and Shasta Ventures, and the company has so far raised $500 million in funding, according to company statements.
Clark left the company in 2013 to pursue venture capital investments and practice wellness and meditation in Costa Rica, according to his social media accounts. The current CEO is Andre Haddad, a former eBay executive.
Turo had revenue of $880 million in 2023 and reported a profit of $14.7 million. During the first nine months of 2024, it generated $722 million with a profit of $19 million, according to regulatory filings.
Turo has been rumored for years to go public and filed paperwork for an initial public offering in 2022. In September, partnered with Uber to allow its customers to rent vehicles from the Uber application.
Shannon Sims contributed reporting from Houston and Jenny Vrentas from New York.