AI for Car Rentals?! Prove It! | Pitch.Tech EP 2

Name: AI for Car Rentals?! Prove It! | Pitch.Tech EP 2
Duration: 16 min 6 s
Description: Pitch.tech is a startup competition hosted by EO and .Tech Domains, bringing early-stage founders building with disruptive technologies to the heart of Silic...

EO16:06Added Aug 31, 2026

Pitch.tech is a startup competition hosted by EO and .Tech Domains, bringing early-stage founders building with disruptive technologies to the heart of Silic...

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

Transcript

00:00Right. That doesn't sound like an AI
00:01recommendation, but because they told us
00:05they all the pitches talked something
00:07about AI. To be honest, like many of
00:09these these are more of like a buzz
00:11word. They are using it more like a buzz
00:12word. Hi, I'm John Willie. Uh I'm a
00:15three-time founder. I graduated from MIT
00:18and from Stanford. I I won the best
00:19thesis award at Stanford. Had multiple
00:22exits so far. also started Inception
00:24Studio which is now the top accelerator
00:26program for early stage AI founders here
00:29in Silicon Valley. You know I've I've
00:31been an engineer since I was 5 years old
00:33when I start started programming. I won
00:35the USA computer olympiad as one of the
00:37top 15 programmers in the US. As an
00:39investor I'm looking for venture scale
00:41opportunities where I can put in a
00:42million dollars and then I have an
00:43opportunity for at least 100x return you
00:46know coming back to me within you know 5
00:48to 7 to 10 years. Pitch.te Tech is where
00:51bold startups on tech domains get
00:53game-changing insights from top VCs.te
00:55domain instantly signals you're all
00:57about cutting edge tech and innovation.
00:59Building a tech startup build it on
01:02tech.
01:05So we are raising around our preed round
01:07of 1.5 million. The goal of today is to
01:10meet investors and potentially close our
01:13round. Let's go. My name is Laurana. Uh
01:16I'm a co-founder and the CEO of Rexalto.
01:18We have developed and introduced an AI
01:20dynamic pricing engine. We previously
01:22co-ounded one of the largest European
01:24car sharing companies. Company generated
01:2675 million uh annual revenue and what's
01:30more important it was cash flow
01:31positive. What's happening now in the
01:33car rental industry? Increasing prices
01:35of uh vehicles, uncertain residual
01:38values, and growing percentage of
01:39electric vehicles are forcing car rental
01:42and mobility companies to put more focus
01:44on not just reselling cars as they used
01:46to do before, but actually making sure
01:48that they do money on their
01:50cooperations. On top of that, for
01:52mobility companies especially, they
01:54strive to increase their utilization to
01:57improve uh fleet distribution and all of
02:00that can be done with the correct
02:02pricing. Taking all of that into
02:04account, we have engineered an AI
02:06dynamic pricing engine that basically
02:08sets the right price at any given time.
02:10First class of economics, bringing
02:12supply and demand into equilibrium. So
02:14the way it works is we look into the
02:17company's historical data, market
02:19historical data, competitors prices, and
02:22many other factors that help us forecast
02:24demand. Things like weather forecast,
02:26flight information, booking information.
02:28We not only set the price for the for
02:30our customers but we also push it back
02:33either into their fleet management
02:35system or to the OTAAS the aggregators
02:37where they get rents from. We currently
02:39focus on the North American, Europe and
02:42the Middle East. The segments that we
02:44look at and work with are either small
02:46companies or large enterprise companies.
02:48What differentiates us is that we uh
02:51work not only with car rental industry
02:53but with mobility industry and of the
02:56technology because for mobility
02:57companies we use up to 500 data points
03:00for car rental companies it's about 20
03:0330 maybe 40. We offer three pricing as a
03:05service for our traction. We currently
03:07have uh 20 customers paying customers
03:10plus piloting customers. We have
03:12integrated six uh reseller solution. We
03:15uh generated about 200,000 uh annual
03:19revenue. Uh this year we are raising a
03:21round of 1.5 million. We closed 950.
03:25We're now closing the remaining 550.
03:28Thank you very much. You mentioned kind
03:31of in the presentation. Okay. Like you
03:32have uh some of your customers are using
03:34this for kind of rental car rental car
03:37rates. Are there other kind of things in
03:38the automotive space that you're using
03:40for that dynamic pricing today or is it
03:42a lot of companies in mobility are using
03:45that. Look at Uber, Lift, other mobility
03:47companies. It depends because you have a
03:49lot of smaller players players for
03:51micromobility for instance and they use
03:53third party solution. They don't have
03:55their proprietary software and this is
03:57for us they are resellers because we
03:59integrate into their platform and they
04:00sell us to their uh to their customers.
04:03you know, for any tech enabled platform.
04:04I mean, I imagine like they're already
04:06doing something like this or they're
04:08doing some version of this where they
04:10have they're going to have some pricing
04:11engine. They're going to be able to like
04:13determine prices like this is kind of a
04:14common thing. I mean, you mentioned Uber
04:15and Lift, they obviously do all of that,
04:17but then now I mean everything from
04:20concert tickets to, you know, things
04:22anything e-commerce kind of often doing
04:24this type of this type of dynamic
04:26pricing, this might be like core to
04:28their business, very important. So, like
04:30they may want to like develop that
04:31themselves. they have all the data about
04:33it like what type of customer would use
04:35like a service like yours uh versus like
04:37hey we're going to de we either develop
04:39this in our own inhouse or like use some
04:42other very good good question first I'll
04:44answer who are the companies that
04:46develop their own like I talked to head
04:48of revenue management of get get around
04:51they spent a lot of money and many years
04:54developing the dynamic pricing and it
04:56didn't work it's not that simple right
04:59because you need to know how to do it
05:00not to reduce your re revenue even by 1%
05:04right because if you do that you're
05:05fired. So they said we cannot just use
05:08your service software because we need to
05:10make sure our work so we'll keep on
05:12advancing our technology and use it at
05:14the end of the day. Who answering your
05:16question who are our customers? We have
05:18either very small companies that have 50
05:20hundred of cars. They don't have their
05:23proprietary basically their fleet
05:25managers right they're operating their
05:26fleet and they want to do it in the most
05:28effective way. they have a third-party
05:30software solution and they compete with
05:32a budget enterprise etc. So they need to
05:35make sure that they somehow stand out.
05:38So these are our customers and they use
05:39our standard dashboard self-service
05:41dashboard. Then we work with large
05:43companies and these companies are not as
05:46big as enterprise herds but they have
05:48hundreds of thousands of cars still
05:50huge. They basically manage their
05:52franchises. So they need to make sure
05:54that their pricing is consistent
05:56throughout their uh network that they
05:58offer the same quality of service and
06:00that they actually their franchises do
06:03well because they get a percentage of
06:04the what franchises earn. So that's our
06:07second type of customers big groups and
06:10enterprise companies that manage
06:12franchises. What what makes your dynamic
06:14pricing engine better than the
06:17competition? First, as I said, like it's
06:19it's the number of uh data points that
06:22our engine can absorb and make this
06:24decision and judgment. You saw that we
06:26have an AI in the beginning of of this.
06:28Every company
06:29now flexing internet. Yeah. But I'll
06:33tell you where the AI comes. Uh so it's
06:35it's it's it's a bunch of ML models that
06:37work together, right? So that's not
06:39there's this is this is not AI but where
06:41the AI comes is that we every time our
06:45model works in a certain location for a
06:47certain customer it learns from its past
06:50uh performance and next time makes
06:52better predictions make better
06:53assumptions and improves the quality. I
06:56mean, and and on that topic, I noticed
06:57your pricing model is that you're
06:59charging like per car, you know? I mean,
07:01and if if you actually are really
07:02confident about, hey, we're gonna have
07:05this R this is the ROI that we're going
07:06to get. Like, why are you not like
07:08saying, hey, well, you get you're going
07:10to have 90% of the up and we'll just
07:12take 10% of the of the one customer with
07:15who did that. And that was the I was
07:17like telling my team like, let's move
07:18into that like we will make sure our
07:20customers do better and we'll do better.
07:22It didn't work. uh we we still have one
07:24customer on that contract and I'm just
07:26waiting for the contract to renew to get
07:28get away from the the reason why you
07:30always have to you need to have a
07:31baseline. So what are you comparing to?
07:33So usually you would oranges to oranges
07:36December to December, January to
07:37January. But then when things like
07:40Easter or Ramadan happens, they move
07:44from one month to another. Then they
07:46like yeah but the increase was not
07:47because of your pricing model but
07:48because it was uh Easter was in this
07:50month and last year it was in a
07:52different month. So much time is spent
07:54on actually this argument because they
07:56don't want to pay you more, they want to
07:57pay you less. And we said like at this
07:59point we cannot do this. It's it's it's
08:01crazy. So we said we want to be uh clear
08:04and straightforward. We'll do uh
08:07standard pricing per car per month and
08:09that's that's good enough. Yeah. I mean
08:11but that that also I mean you point to
08:14like kind of fundamental problem which
08:15is like that is like measuring like the
08:17the improvement in lift that you're
08:18going to have like from this because
08:20Yeah. I mean, how do you compare apple
08:22to apples like when you're kind of
08:24revenue over time? still compare. We
08:25still they have dashboards. They see how
08:27their pricing increase over a longer
08:29period of time. Like okay, maybe one
08:32month to another might be tricky. But
08:34then if you look on a year scale, you
08:36still see the increase. Do your
08:38customers do AB testing. They can run
08:40two side by side. We usually start with
08:43AB testing especially with big uh
08:46customers but we don't do it within one
08:47city because you can't you cannot do it
08:49in with one location. The customer will
08:51choose what is cheaper. So you have to
08:52do it different locations. So we would
08:54choose few selected location usually the
08:56way our pilot works two three locations
08:59one would be maybe the top location
09:01another one would be midsize location
09:02and third would be like the small
09:05location and then we will see the
09:07results in those those and what has been
09:09the result worst result that we had was
09:11plus 5% of revenue increase. Our best
09:14was it was six times but that was a very
09:16particular case a luxury uh car rental
09:19company that was staying within within
09:22its boundaries. We analyze also the
09:24supply and we said it's Dubai end of
09:27December there are two Lamborghinis
09:29available and there is a demand for 100
09:31you can put whatever price you want you
09:33will still sell it right that doesn't
09:34sound like an AI recommendation no that
09:36I mean like that because they was cap
09:38they called us because they called me
09:39they were like a brilliant your system
09:41is crazy that tells me to put I don't
09:44remember the price something is wrong
09:45with that I was like hold on let me uh
09:47look into this so I looked into this and
09:49then we said like that's what you should
09:50put customers don't like dynamic pricing
09:53because it's like wait a second. Oh, you
09:54got you got a different price than I got
09:57when I like when I went you know went to
09:59for this or like it's you know there's a
10:02lot of backlash around pricing and like
10:04these these sorts of things which
10:06ultimately ends up kind of a brand risk
10:08there which is like why sometimes like
10:10even though they can you know they could
10:12potentially uh you know try to do this
10:14like kind of they're they're careful
10:15about time to do this. So what what are
10:17your thoughts on that side? First of
10:18all, uh revenue is not the only KPI why
10:21our customers use us. In many cases is
10:24they want to avoid human mistake. Many
10:26most of them they do uh they look at
10:28competitors prices and they do their
10:30manual and I mean the level of
10:32complexity you have different codes zip
10:35codes like cars are divided into codes.
10:37You have different lengths of rental one
10:39day, two days, three days etc etc. You
10:42have different locations. So actually
10:43the number of price points you have to
10:47change every day sometimes even every
10:49hour it's tremendous. So if you do it
10:51all manually you do mistakes and this
10:54this is what our top managers of the
10:55companies tell us. We know that this is
10:57not
10:58ideal or we often have to actually cut
11:01cut cut the road. So like okay we'll
11:03like not put too much effort here
11:05because just too much. So we'll make an
11:06assumption. So without basing their
11:08assumptions on data. So automatization
11:11of the process and pushing it back into
11:14the system is number one KPI for many of
11:17our large companies. Secondly, we don't
11:19change the price depending on the
11:21customer. So this is up to the company
11:23whether they want to charge C different
11:24customers have their loyalty programs
11:26for mobility companies. We do we don't
11:28look at a particular customer because we
11:30don't have the data but we cluster them.
11:32So we understand that this customer
11:34falls into this cluster at this and so
11:36there's a different coefficient but
11:37that's what all mobility companies are
11:39famous for because they uh they give the
11:42car to to different audiences. This is
11:44very interesting because I mean I went
11:46to your website actually to very nice
11:47looking website uh to be honest looking
11:49at your website I had no clue what you
11:50guys did. Uh, so like this is uh like uh
11:53hearing the pitch is like actually like
11:55now I have a much better idea of like uh
11:57what what you're doing because like I
11:59think it just at least in terms of like
12:01the copy that was on the website they
12:03didn't it didn't come across like on on
12:05there. You you cover the team extremely
12:06early. Um which to be honest like before
12:09I know what problem you're solving it's
12:11hard to be able to judge wait is this
12:13the right team that sort of thing right?
12:15Um, so like you know sometimes better
12:17like say that later like after oh and by
12:19the way this is why the this is here's
12:20the evidence is why we're the right team
12:22to do this right and so like what is
12:24your connection to this problem this
12:27space and like how about the rest of the
12:28team like how like why are you uniquely
12:30suited to be like you're the ones in the
12:33world to solve this problem. So that
12:34yeah the actually the reason why I
12:35showed it in the beginning is that in
12:37our past company when we exited and
12:39decided to do something else together we
12:41started thinking okay let's share our
12:43knowledge with other companies we
12:45definitely decided not to build another
12:46car a car car sharing company anywhere
12:48in the world it's very operationally
12:50intense business and then we thought
12:51maybe we do consultancy maybe we do that
12:53that that we said listen let's do what
12:55we did best and we really were best on
12:58the market in terms of pricing correctly
13:01distributing the fleet pricing
13:04uh being considered to be the low coster
13:07and yet making more revenue than our
13:09customers competitors. So that's what we
13:11did and we said let's try to replicate
13:13it uh for other companies. So we started
13:15initially with car car sharing and
13:18mobility companies but then we said
13:19listen there's a much bigger market here
13:22car rental which has it's a dinosaur
13:24industry. So we started looking into
13:26that talking to potential customers and
13:28that's how it all started. Thank you.
13:31Thank you very much. I grew up in a very
13:33international environment. I'm half
13:35Russian, half Indian. So I was always
13:38exposed to different cultures. I
13:40graduated from two US universities, both
13:43in Russia. Then I traveled abroad. So I
13:46started my previous uh together with my
13:48co-founders. We started the previous
13:49company back in 2014 and we were running
13:53the business for 8 years. I left the
13:56country in 2022 for for the war reasons
13:59and it was one of the most difficult
14:01moments of my life was very stressful
14:04was very uncertain and we came here to
14:06US together with my family with my
14:08husband after maybe half a year I said I
14:11want to build something new together
14:13something new here we wanted to use our
14:16knowledge that we gained in our previous
14:18company and the experience that we had
14:20and the understanding of the market and
14:22share it with other companies not only
14:24cautious sharing companies but mobility
14:26companies and also car rental companies.
14:29The thing I like about Rick Alto is is
14:32that uh she is a successful founder that
14:35she built a very successful business
14:37before and based on that experience has
14:40come up to solve this problem in a
14:43compelling manner. What would been great
14:45for me that I would like is uh uh fairly
14:49early on that once she explains that
14:52this is her product is to have a slide
14:54that first says I have six customers
14:56right now because in the beginning I'm
14:58wondering is this an idea? Does she have
15:01customers? Does it work? All these
15:03things. But if I know she's got like six
15:05customers that like it then I know this
15:07is great. And then the next is uh in the
15:10same slide is to show in one year I'll
15:13have 20 customers and these are the
15:16customers that I'm working on. And then
15:18maybe 5 years from now this is what I
15:21want 1,000 customers. All the pitches
15:23talked something about AI. To be honest
15:25like many of these are these are more of
15:27like a buzz word. They using it more
15:29like a buzz word. I know we need to talk
15:31about AI so let's like try to craft an
15:34AI story like on onto our business.
15:36didn't really talk about why is a why
15:39using AI, why is this important, why we
15:41have a tech domain. I think the domain
15:44that you choose it should reflect what
15:46you're doing, right? I like the idea of
15:48highlighting that it's a tech company,
15:50it's a tech product. And I think it also
15:53we stand out uh to our competitors
15:56because it we highlight uh highlight
15:59this point.
16:01[Music]