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erento is the largest online rental marketplace in Germany. The company considers itself at the forefront of the collaborative consumption movement, also known as the sharing economy. Founded in 2003 by Chris Müller and Uwe Kampschulte as a Berlin start-up, today erento is operating in the UK, Finland, Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
History[]
The company was founded in 2003 by Chris Müller and Uwe Kampschulte as an online marketplace for rental items within Germany. erento quickly grew to Europe's largest rental marketplace, with locations in Germany, the UK, Austria and Switzerland. In 2006, erento offered approximately 200,000 items for rental. That number tripled to over 640,000 rental items offered on erento in 2007.[1]
In 2007 Holzbrinck Ventures, one of Germany's largest, most successful venture funds raised its holding in erento to 13 percent. Later in 2009, founder Uwe Kampschulte left the company and was replaced by Oliver Weyergraf.[2]
In November 2013, erento grew again by acquiring Finnish online rental platform iRent.fi. Established by the Laakeri Group, iRent.fi has a significant peer-to-peer rental community. With this purchase, erento took a significant step in the direction of the sharing economy and collaborative consumption models, an ongoing goal of the company. As a result of this merger, erento now operates actively in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the UK and Finland.[3]
Business progress[]
The customers of erento are rental "landlords" that offer their rental items to erento's more than 50,000 daily website visitors. These rental items include physical wares, like sports cars, tools or mobile homes, as well as services. In 2010, the business model was transformed from a commission model to a contact based model. With this contact model, each rental "landlord" can offer a certain number of articles online each month. The items are then advertised via erento's vast marketing networks. When a user searches for an item, the contact details of erento's "landlords", such as website and phone number, are shared directly with the public.[2]
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