Has Kyte Crashed to Earth? Talking Winners & Losers with Placer.ai's RJ Hottovy

With respect to the dozens of other companies that go by Kyte or Kite, the car rental via delivery startup Kyte looks like it may have hit a very bumpy road. Last week, Los Angeles-area customers received word the company was pulling out of the market — the nation’s largest for car usage — after about four years of local operations.Intrigued, I headed to their website, where even earlier this week the homepage still touted their availability in other major markets like Chicago and Boston. But while those cities still have landing pages up, punch in a rental date after 11/7 and you’ll see that no cars are available. Other regions that seem to have lost service include Philadelphia, Atlanta, DC and Seattle.It’s possible the company’s been hunting for fresh cash for some time now, despite closing on a $250 million debt facility in March. While the company’s reportedly been doing the rounds for traditional venture investment, it also seems to have kicked the tires on a crowdfunding campaign via StartEngine. Equity crowdfunding has a mixed track record, but at least with consumer-oriented, hardware-focused brands you can make the case that consumers are buying into a product they like and getting a physical perk out of it; Kyte’s investment perks are discounts on car rentals, that’s about as exciting as when the local little league team sells of those books of coupons to nearby businesses.As I learned at Turo, renting and sharing cars is a tough biz, even the big guys like Hertz and Avis are facing slumping sales these days. Other upstarts have seen worse fates: Fluid Truck just filed for Chapter 11, Upshift — which also delivers cars to users — seems to be pivoting to fleet software (Greg shares more in the podcast.)One big challenge for operators in this space is figuring out if you’re appealing to locals or travelers. If you’re going after travelers, you need to be available at the airport, and you plant the flag in tourist-heavy cities like Vegas and Orlando, even though they have smaller local populations. Kyte seemed more focused on serving locals, trying to get car-light denizens of coastal cities to use the service when they needed a ride for a special occasion.Tune in to the podcast for more thoughts on why that’s so challenging a model. Greg and I also chat about Walmart vs Amazon, and then Placer.ai’s Head of Analytical Research R.J. Hottovy stops by to talk about other winners and losers, both on the retail brand level and in terms of metropolitan areas. Listen in!This episode brought to you by PizzaBox AI. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thecurbivore.com

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