Waive Car is touted as the world’s first all-electric, free car-sharing service. “We waive the fee. You drive for free” is the tagline. Each rider is allowed to use the free service for 2-hours at a time. The business model relies on advertising: the car is wrapped with a vinyl ad and has a LCD display ad on top of the car like a taxi cab. The entrepreneurs behind Waive Car, Zoli Honig and Isaac Deutsch of Santa Monica, California are pitching the business on Shark Tank on Sunday, October 29. They are seeking an investment of $500,000 in exchange for 2 percent equity. Waive Car has the advantage (or disadvantage) of presenting in front of returning Guest Shark Chris Sacca who has mentioned repeatedly on the show that he was one of the first to invest in Uber. Early on, the cowboy shirt wearing Sacca invested $300,000 in the ride-sharing giant in exchange for 4 percent equity; Uber was recently valued at $41 billion.
Over the years Sacca has made his opinion of the Uber, the company’s culture, and leadership known (Sacca has said that “Uber is truly an adolescent company,” but not all in a bad way — adolescents grow up.) In May, 42-year-old Sacca announced he’s retiring from venture capital investing and from Shark Tank. Will Sacca’s stories of Uber — and the vast wealth he acquired by investing in a fledgling ride-hailing company that blew up to be a global force — influence the other Sharks? After all, the Waive Car Shark Tank ask is similar financially to the original deal Sacca made with Uber. He put in less ($300K), yes, and got more (4 percent) but if Waive Car managed to grow at anything like Uber’s growth rate the early money in for 2 percent would look awfully smart. It’s worth noting that Uber broke new ground, taking on the entrenched taxi business in multiple cities — is the ad-based idea Waive Car pitches innovative enough to get scale, which is how the Sharks make their money? Uber also famously doesn’t maintain its own car force — that’s the freelance driver’s job. Shark Tank airs Sundays at 9pm on ABC.
