Mevo is expanding through the takeover of a Hamilton company.
Mevo is a car sharing company that operates in Wellington. Photo: RNZ / Alison Ballance
The Wellington-based car share company, which fuel retailer Z Energy owns 31 percent of, is to buy Hamilton-based car share company Loop for an undisclosed sum.
Mevo has also reached a $30 million vehicle supply agreement with the Ebbett Group, which also owns Loop.
"The vehicle supply agreement with Ebbett and the Loop acquisition will play a large part in the next phase of Mevo's explosive growth and support expansion in Wellington," Mevo chief executive and founder Erik Zydervelt said.
"This is also a key milestone ahead of Mevo's entry into Auckland and Hamilton later this year."
Mevo would not disclose how many cars it operates in Wellington but Zydervelt said users had made 50,000 trips in the past year. Loop has about 20 vehicles in its fleet.
Zydervelt said the company expected to be up and running in Auckland "this side of Christmas" at which time Loop in Hamilton would change to the Mevo brand.
He said the expanded company would benefit from economies of scale, but even now it was "growth profitable".
"We continue to invest into the growth of the company, but we know that at any time if we needed to we could scale back and run a profitable company," Zydervelt said.
He declined to give details of the vehicle supply deal with Ebbett, but said it could be regarded as part of the economies of scale achieved in the deal, which was advantageous for both companies.