[ibimage==25775==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]Peer-to-peer rideshare company SideCar is inching closer and closer to nationwide expansion. SideCar’s launch in LA on February 15 was a huge success, LA Manager Drew Crofton said, and the company just tacked on Austin, Seattle and Philadelphia too.
This all happened quickly since the company closed a $10 million Series A round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Google Ventures in October 2012. San Francisco-based SideCar is using this leverage to expand to even more cities: next up is Chicago, Boston, New York and DC, Crofton said.
During its first weekend in LA, SideCar only operated on the West Side, giving rides within five to 15 minutes (a wait time that Crofton said will decrease as the company signs on more drivers). Since then, SideCar LA has increased service to the entire city and even to other cities (such as rideshares from LA to Austin for SXSW in March).
“The scale we are looking at is huge,” Crofton said. “We are using these funds to expand the team, expand our product offering and take SideCar nationwide.”
The reason for all of this expansion is so there’s no need for users to switch apps in every city while traveling. And prospective users have a wide variety of choices, with so many carsharing apps such as Uber and Lyft. SideCar though, Crofton said, is the only “true ridesharing” mobile app available because Uber and Lyft closely resemble taxi services. With the SideCar app, users input both their pickup and drop-off locations before drivers accept the ride.
“Simply put, a rideshare is not rideshare if the driver doesn’t first know where he or she is going,” Crofton said. “SideCar gives both the rider and the driver a lot more visibility into the ride before it happens. The rider knows who the driver is, and the driver knows where the rider wants to go before accepting the ride.”[ibimage==25776==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-right]
Differentiating itself in this way allows SideCar to attract a broad base of both customers and drivers, Crofton said, especially because it does not use sleek black cars like Uber or attach playful pink mustaches to cars like Lyft (“The mustaches have been alienating to some,” he said).
The idea behind SideCar is nothing new, though: from phone numbers on bulletin boards to unorganized posts on Craigslist, ridesharing is a concept that has long appealed a wide customer base. SideCar has simply taken this longstanding need for transportation and transformed it to allow users to request rides on the go and give flexibility to drivers.
“For the driver perspective, the difference comes down to choice,” Crofton said. “With SideCar, drivers choose where they want to go, when they want to drive and for how long. It’s a very flexible way for them to offset the cost of their cars.”
