
Volvo acquires Luxe - prostoalex
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/08/volvo-acquires-car-valet-startup-luxe-to-boost-its-digital-services-business/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29
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relaunched
This seems like a talent acquisition play. There was probably a lot of work
that went into find a soft place for the whole team to land; so, kudos to the
leaders / investors / whomever helped make this happen.

It's not a big exit, but if you are a luxe employee, it's the best of the
worst outcomes.

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Flammy
> It's not a big exit, but if you are a luxe employee, it's the best of the
> worst outcomes.

This data wasn't in the article. It is probably the more likely outcome, but
we just don't know (yet).

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elsewhen
i know this isn't definitive, but the article does include: "One source close
to the deal tells us that the terms here were closely guarded, and that the
assumption at this point is that it was ‘pennies on the dollar’ based on the
last valuation."

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__abc
What's Volvo's motivation here? The entire Luxe business model was wildly
unprofitable and the UX as a consumer (egregious weight times at both drop off
and pick up) was awful.

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moonka
I used it a few times in Seattle under a promo, and it was so painful. Getting
the timing down so the valet wasn't waiting out in the rain for awhile waiting
for me was difficult, and than it always took 15-20 minutes longer for them to
get my car back to me than what was shown in the app. I found myself better
off just using Lyft when I'm worried about parking.

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vadym909
How can you be a tech company and expect to make tech company margins when all
you do is aggregate demand, parking spots and valets to match them. Luxe
making $3/hr x 200 valets and maybe a bit more on the parking arbitrage during
peak hrs.

Sounds like any of the local garage joints. I feel some markets are best left
fragmented.

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eldavido
Not sure about "fragmented" but perhaps not VC-appropriate.

This stuff will all go away once (a) the non top-tier investors realize their
entire portfolios are underwater and (b) interest rates rise a bit.

Stepping back, it is pretty remarkable that a company I've heard of, with a
launched product and some degree of use, just _fails_ like this. Tech
entrepreneurship is hard.

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asanwal
More proof that if you lose money on every transaction, you can't make it up
in volume.

The on-demand valet parking space has been a great place to lose money. Zirx
pivoted, Caarbon failed and now this acqui-hire of Luxe which was somehow
valued at $157M in its last round.[1]

Other companies in the space haven't raised in a while including Ubo of China
and ValetAnywhere.

[1] source: CB Insights

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inji
Reasonable acquisition to expand the Volvo Concierge [0] services. The digital
services are likely the strongest selling point in a few years when luxuary
car makers all offers self driving, electric powered cars.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPKDy7k5hHE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPKDy7k5hHE)

