Europcar Group has taken a 20 per cent minority investment in SnappCar, a peer-to-peer car sharing scale-up.

This investment is fully in line with the group’s ambition to become a global mobility solutions leader, and provides a good alternative to car ownership thanks to a large portfolio of affordable solutions tailored to individual needs.

The investment will enable SnappCar to take peer-to-peer car sharing to its next stage of development in Europe.

SnappCar’s ambition is to reduce, by five million, the numbers of owned cars by 2022.

With this investment, Europcar joins the consortium of existing shareholders - AutoBinck Group - and the Danish Startup Studio Founders who have extended their commitment to SnappCar.

The total amount of the investment round is €10 million euros.

These investors are now joining forces with a common ambition to help SnappCar expand geographically within Europe and further improve and innovate its platform usage and services for its members, by for example, introducing ‘keyless technology’, making it possible to open a car through the SnappCar app.

SnappCar is a Dutch scale-up and social enterprise created in 2011.

It is the second largest international peer-to-peer car sharing player in Europe with more than 250,000 customers sharing over 30,000 cars available on its platform.

Today SnappCar is available in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden with the intention to expand to new markets.

The average car is not in use for 23 hours per day.

SnappCar believes inefficiency leads to waste and wants to make peer2peer car sharing generally accepted by millions of Europeans by enabling them to share their cars in an easy, reliable and fun way.

“We are delighted to be acquiring a stake in SnappCar’s capital.

“The Lab has invested in this company as it sees its potential for growth, allowing the group to enrich its mobility offers and to target new types of customers.

“We see a great opportunity to help this company accelerate its development of car sharing with a peer-to-peer platform throughout Europe,” said Sheila Struyck, managing director of the new mobility business unit and Europcar Lab lord.