Turo Car Rental App Was Quietly Growing Before New Orleans and Las Vegas Attacks

For nearly 15 years, the Turo app was used in the deadly attack in New Orleans and the car bombing at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, investigators say, gradually evolving as an alternative to traditional rental services such as Hertz and Enterprise.

The company was founded as RelayRides in 2010 and renamed Turo in 2015. More than 3.5 million people booked a car through Turo last year, according to the agency. company registration. As of September, the app had 350,000 vehicle listings in more than 16,000 cities.

Now Turo, which last year considered an initial public offering on Wall Street, faces uncomfortable scrutiny for what may be a coincidental connection between the two incidents.

The app works similarly to Airbnb, where “hosts” can list their cars on the Turo marketplace for users to rent.

For some users, the app is a cheaper alternative to airport-based car fleet rental companies, with many vehicles available for less than $50 per day. Others use the app to rent new cars at higher prices, such as classic cars, high-end sports cars or Tesla Cybertrucks, such as the one used in the Las Vegas bombing.

As with traditional rental services, Turo customers need to upload their driver’s license, home address and payment information to create an account.

Hosts on Turo range from people who rent out their personal car to earn extra income to users who list over a dozen cars for sale and rent them on Turo as a full-time job. Turo provides its hosts with third party liability insurance up to $750,000. For drivers who are responsible for any damage to the vehicle while they are renting it, Turo offers insurance.

In a statement Wednesday, the company said it was “heartbroken by the violence committed in New Orleans and Las Vegas” and was actively cooperating with law enforcement in both incidents.

“These individuals in question had a valid driver’s license, passed a background check, and were honorably discharged from the U.S. Army,” Turo said. “They could board any plane, check into a hotel, or rent a car or truck from a traditional car rental chain.”

Investigators have not yet found a definitive link between the New Orleans attack and the Tesla explosion in Las Vegas, but law enforcement officials said they continue to look for connections between the incidents.

Turo was founded in Boston by Shelby Clarke, who served as CEO, and later moved to San Francisco, where she is based. According to the company, its initial investors included Google Ventures, August Capital and Shasta Ventures, and the company has raised $500 million in funding to date.

Mr. Clark left the company in 2013 to pursue venture capital investing and a wellness and meditation practice in Costa Rica, according to his social media accounts. The current CEO is Andre Haddad, a former eBay executive.

In 2023, Turo had revenues of $880 million and profits of $14.7 million. In the first nine months of 2024, it generated $722 million on profits of $19 million, according to the company. regulatory documents.

Turo has been rumored for years to go public and has filed for an initial public offering in 2022. teamed up with Uber allow its customers to rent cars through the Uber app.

Shannon Sims contributed reporting from Houston and Jenny Vrentas from New York.