"There are no ‘Out of Office’ Hours for Liigu" - Annemari Muru, CEO of the Keyless Car Rental Startup

The word 'liigu' means 'move' in Estonian. It's also the name of of an app-based car sharing and rental startup, based in Tartu, Estonia. It describes itself as a mobility service provider that connects cars to customers via mobile phone. 

"Our goal is to offer a convenient and sustainable alternative to owning a car," Liigu's CEO, Annemari Muru, tells Auto Futures.

"Our motivation for starting Liigu is to make travelling a stress-free experience for all customers while using a car. We see that there is a gap in the car rental market. It is still very traditional and paper-based, while app-based services are already being used daily by customers in almost every industry. We thought if you can order a taxi from an app, why not rent a car with an app," she says.

In just two years, the company has served over 3,000 customers.

"We believe in sustainable mobility and want to slow down the increase in the number of cars without sacrificing the convenience of private transportation. 17 million people live and travel to another EU country daily and many of them need personal cars. Liigu’s mission is to provide all people with the convenience of a personal car without the need to own it and still have access to it anytime anywhere."

Liigu aims to support travellers throughout the whole of their journeys. It has a live customer support team available 24/7. The team speaks six different languages.

"Customers don’t have to worry about lines, paperwork or hidden costs, which they will often have to experience when going to the car rental desks to rent a car. They can book their rental via the Liigu app with only 3 clicks. Upon arrival at the destination city, the app will lead the customer to the car and will serve as the car key to open and close the doors," says Muru.

"Liigu is not only challenging traditional car rental companies but the whole car ownership model. The customer can use a car for two days or for two months and do it as easily as described above – just with the Liigu app. We treat all customers equally, we respect their needs and provide a car for as long as they need it," she adds.

Making Life Easier For Travellers

Liigu is a pioneer of the Phone-as-a-Key (PaaK) approach for car rental. Although the technology is fairly new to customers, Muru believes it will become mainstream in the future.

"We transform a smartphone into a phone key, and it remains so throughout the whole journey.  We work with the best of telematics providers to apply IoT elements to our fleet – install devices to cars that enable them to connect to the cloud and make them compatible with any smartphone," she explains.

The Phone-as-a-Key service aims to make the rental flow safe and very personalised for the customer.

"There are no ‘Out of Office’ hours for Liigu – the customer can get their car even during nighttime, which many providers charge extra for or are not able to offer at all. With PaaK, our customers don’t have to get a car key from someone to start the rental and what’s most important – they will never lose the key either."

If Muru is right, this contactless technology will have a big impact on the car rental market.

"Digitalisation has become a necessity in any field and is slowly but surely entering into traditional car rental as well. Liigu is a good example of how technology makes life easier for travellers. In our vision the keyless becomes a norm in any car usage service really soon and it is up to a service providers to keep up with customers needs and meet their expectations," says Muru.

"On a daily basis, we see that our customers love contactless and keyless solutions because it gives them the feeling of having their own car waiting at the airport. Our solution gives them flexibility in their schedule (if the flight is cancelled, the car is still waiting for them), independence in their actions, and a feeling of safety," she adds.

The Transition From Car Ownership to Usership

Liligo has been the leading travel search engine on the French market since 2013. Liigu's service is integrated in its search platform.

"When travellers do a search on liligo.fr they see Liigu’s offers next to traditional ones. Our partnership brings the convenience of digital rental to millions of travellers who are travelling to and within France. This strategic collaboration is a big step toward Liigu’s mission to make cars accessible anytime anywhere," explains Muru.

Muru has big ambitions for her company, and has European expansion plans. the plan is to expand to more than 17 cities across Southern and Western Europe,

"Our next step is to scale up in France and open operations in Italy this year. To achieve this goal we are increasing our fleet to include new models loved by the customers and making sure that our operations are aligned with the customer needs. In five years' projection, we see that Liigu will be in all the biggest cities in Southern Europe and will be the leading player in the quality of service and implementation of technological solutions."

"In the long term, we aim to bring our vision to all customers, partners, industry leaders, and decision-makers that renting and subscription are more convenient and sustainable than owning a car. The transition from ownership to usership contributes to making mobility sustainable. Investing in this convenient way of transportation will lead us to a greener future," she says.

Finally, we asked Muru what the car rental sector will look like by 2030. 

"In upcoming years, we will see increased use of digital technology and more app-based services in the industry. The large rise in the number of people, who prefer to use cars as a service rather than owning them, increases the demand for car rental and subscription services. Companies will offer more flexible rental options to meet the changing needs of customers who will need cars for the short or long term," she predicts.

"More environmentally friendly practices will be implemented in the industry, as the next generation cares about green mobility," concludes Muru.