■ SCVNGR. One of Boston’s highest-profile mobile start-ups. But what’s going to get momentum first: SCVNGR’s first product, a game that involves performing “challenges’’ at different locations to earn points, or its second offering, an app that offers special deals at local establishments, and a way to pay for them using your phone?
■ Zynga Boston. The San Francisco “social games’’ biggie bought two small Boston game companies recently, Conduit Labs and Floodgate Entertainment. What’s the first game the Zynga Boston team will release? Given Conduit’s background, I’m guessing it will be music- or dance-related.
RelayRide service expanding to Boston RelayRides, the “neighbor-to-neighbor’’ car-sharing service, is jumping the Charles River this month, using $3.6 million in new funds to expand from Cambridge, where the company was founded, into Boston.
The company is also expanding in San Francisco, where it is headquartered.
Unlike Zipcar, which leases the cars in its fleet, RelayRides invites automobile owners to rent out their cars when they are not using need them.
The company was created by a Harvard Business School student, Shelby Clark, and it won a $50,000 prize in the inaugural MassChallenge start-up competition.
Clark said the average vehicle owner is earning about $250 a month by renting out a car through RelayRides, and that the company has 150 cars signed up for the service so far in Cambridge and San Francisco.
(I should note that the gas used by renters, as well as maintenance costs, are deducted from that revenue.)
“We’re starting to cover all of Metro Boston,’’ Clark wrote via e-mail. “The first car that we enrolled in Boston proper (near Boston Common) is an awesome Mercedes CLK convertible, which is available for only $8 an hour (priced lower than most standard car-sharing cars).’’
RelayRides has raised $10 million from a group of investors, including Google Ventures, August Capital, Shasta Ventures, and Lisa Gansky. Several new competitors have cropped up since the company was founded, including Getaround, in San Francisco.
For the full Innovation Economy blog, updated daily, visit www.boston.com/innovation.
