Car-sharing startup Turo raises additional $12 million

Peer-to-Peer CarSharing marketplace Turo has officially closed a $104 million Series D round. This comes following a $12 million investment from Sumitomo Corporation and American Express Ventures, on top of a $92 million raise earlier this year.

“As a company that is intensely focused on enabling its customers to have unique travel experiences, American Express’ strategic investment positions us well within the travel ecosystem,” Turo wrote in a blog post. “Sumitomo Corporation will help provide guidance as we look to expand to Asia, particularly Japan. We welcome and expect to learn from their expertise in global marketing and customer service as Turo continues to make a huge impact in the automotive and travel industries.”

Turo has also unveiled a new program called Commercial Host. The idea is to enable independent car rental businesses — ones that can offer commercial rental insurance — the ability to offer their cars via Turo. Currently, Turo has six million people on board its platform sharing more than 230,000 cars worldwide.

Uber had approached Turo about potentially becoming its partner on the Uber Rent platform, but Turo felt the deal wasn’t in line with its business plans and focus on international growth, a person familiar with the talks told Quartz. The ride-hailing company also spoke with Turo last summer about letting Uber drivers rent cars for short periods of time on Turo’s platform. “We looked into it and we didn’t actually think the economics made any sense,” Turo CEO Andre Haddad told Quartz at the time.

Last week, Uber announced plans to launch its own rental car network in partnership with Getaround, another San Francisco-based Peer-to-Peer startup that lets users book vehicles from private car owners. Uber has previously partnered with rental car companies to make vehicles available to ride-hailing drivers. The new Uber Rent platform, scheduled to launch later this month in San Francisco, represents the first time the company has offered rental cars to customers.