Spanish start-up Revel raises €115 million for a digital car subscription service

Revel was founded in 2020.

Spanish startup Revel has raised €115 million ($123 million) in a combination of equity and debt funding to expand its digital car subscription service, offering flexible leasing agreements that include insurance and maintenance. While Diego de Mateo, co-founder and CEO of the firm, declined to disclose its valuation, the funding is expected to help build out the broader car network. Revel was founded in 2020. After raising a modest €750,000, used the testing period to create a model that takes into account lessons learned from leasing failures among auto tech startups. The findings indicated people preferred leasing models, which are growing faster than traditional car sales, and a one-year sweet spot in Spain was viable, being shorter than a typical lease and more economically appealing than short-term rentals.

The subscription model's fee includes carbon offsetting and other services paid via monthly installments, and people can swap cars in and out of a range of models online or via an app. There is no transparency about Revel's vehicle sourcing, but some €100 million has been earmarked for structured financing to support the supplier arrangement. Longer term, the model could offer a means for consumers to keep up with increasingly advanced car models and possibly autonomous vehicles, enabling them to lease rather than buy to cut costs.