OWN THE TRIP, NOT THE CAR™

You drive, and we'll take care of the rest.

Robin Chase
(Founder)
 ZipCar: What is it
• Zipcar is car sharing service, giving you
convenient access to vehicles located in cities,
airports and campuses. It allow you to reserve
cars by the hour or day, at a low rate.
• Just become a member, reserve a car and hit
the road in just a few easy steps.
 ZipCar: How it begun
• THE STORY
• In the late ’90s, Antje Danielson’s son Max and Robin Chase’s daughter Linnea often played
together on a tire swing in Cambridge, Massachusetts' Dana Park. The two women had met
at their kids’ kindergarten, but supervising the playground is how they got to know each
other. Danielson , a geochemist working for the University Committee on Environment at
Harvard University, and Chase, an MIT business school graduate turned stay-at-home mom,
kept chatting, their casual park encounters grew more profound. Chase started telling
Danielson about wanting to put her business degree to good use, about her entrepreneurial
ambitions. Danielson spoke of wanting to branch out of academia.
• Having coffee one day in September 1999, Chase listened intently as her friend, Antje
Danielson, told her about a car-sharing business she had learned about during a recent visit
to Berlin, Germany. The concept struck a chord there “I felt like I was the right person to hear
that idea at that exact moment,” Chase said. “I thought to myself, ‘Wow, this is exactly what
the Internet was made for: sharing a very specific resource among lots of people.’” as it
would enable a car-sharing start-up to do, namely allow reservations and usage data to be
seamlessly communicated among the cars, the company, and the users.
• She believed the time was right for car sharing in the United States. And hence they started
zipcar in partnership.
 ZipCar: Highlights
• Started by two women in the late 90’s and early
20’, both equally enthusiast to start a business.
• An idea that was originally forwarded by Antje
Danielson(her friend), whose similar version
seemed popular in her birth place Berlin,
Germany and other European countries.
• It was aimed to operate in the united states.
• Zipcar had its first vehicle on the road by May of
2000, and counted over 600 customers by
September.
 ZipCar: An early Downhill
• In the very beginning of the next year in the first month, chase fires
danielson from the company.
• Want of more assets, more power by chase was the primary source
of conflict as per danielson. Whereas chase suggested that
danielson never really contributed to the firm even in the new born
times.
• Although Zipcar raises around 4.7 million dollars in the venture and
more zipcars are now running the streets in upcoming year.
• A year later again chase gets fired as CEO for investing in a fruitless
funding, now taken over by griffith scott.
• End of both the founder’s journey with zipcar, chase starts business
into advertising firm relating to wireless application.
• Again founds Goloco, online ride sharing firm which eventually
defunctions, again opens Buzzcar- a french car sharing service in
2011.
 ZipCar: Today
• April 2010: Buys streetcar, largest sharing
company in united kingdoms for 50 million
dollars.
• April 2011: company goes public, valued at 1
billion, by 2012 shares fall from 28 $ to 8.5$
• November 2012: Largest car sharing firm in USA,
canada,UK and Europe in with 11,000 cars and
767000 subscribers.
• January 2013: Avis buys ZipCar for 491 million
dollars.