PrazoNow, a Los Angeles-based car subscription service, has rebranded as Borrow.
Founded in 2015, the company started out as Prazo and allowed customers to lease a Ford C-Max hybrid for two years without going to a dealership.
However, the startup soon learned that two years was still considered “too long,” and customers also wanted more variety, Rodrigo de Guzman, chief executive of PrazoNow, previously told Auto Finance News. That’s when PrazoNow was born and its business model pivoted to offer all-electric cars for renewable three-, six-, or nine-month terms.
Since then, the company has decided to rebrand as Borrow to better emphasize the current business model, a spokeswoman told AFN.
Borrow, as PrazoNow, secured seed funding in June, led by Mucker Capital, and handed out its first subscription in early July.
The company decided to rebrand for a few reasons, the spokeswoman said. The first being that an appropriate name had finally been chosen — in fact, the name “Borrow” came to de Guzman in a dream, she said. Additionally, gearing up for the LA Auto Show in early December — and moving into the new year and first fiscal quarter of 2018 — it was deemed an appropriate time to announce a new company name.
Borrow is currently expanding its fleets to 100 cars over a few months, in addition to expanding further into California — including the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California, AFN previously reported.
The company is still in ongoing conversations with automakers, to focus on gaining access to new inventory before the vehicles hit the dealerships, but could not provide an update. Over the next few weeks, announcements on a financing deal to purchase new vehicles and partnerships will be released.
