When I started entrepreneurship, in mid-2012, I was proud to say from the rooftops that no one in the world was — supposedly — doing the same thing as me.
Out of pure innocence, I believed that innovation (and, consequently, the shortcut to success) was synonymous with inventing something completely new, which no human mind had ever thought of creating.
Sweet and dangerous illusion.
Stumble after stumble, I began to understand that the vast majority of successful innovations lived precisely on the opposite side of creating the “never seen before”.
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The great idea was to critically analyze what someone was already doing and find a crack, a tactical gap, to execute that same journey in a disruptively better way.
There is even a conceptual line about this, designed by Thales Teixeira, Brazilian and former professor at Harvard Business School, called Decoupling Theory.
Its premise is clear: disruption is not necessarily generated by the advent of new technologies, but by the profound change in consumer behavior, which begins to seek to separate (or decouple) links in the same value chain to obtain more agile results.
In practice, he argues that, when a traditional market solution becomes rigid, bureaucratic or too packaged, someone can emerge, bite off a small fraction of that need and deliver something infinitely superior.
The person who understood this, not because he was a student at Thales, but because he experienced this theory firsthand, was Daniel Prado, co-founder of Turbi.
The mobility problem that became a business
Daniel was not from São Paulo. But, when moving to the capital of São Paulo and starting to design his routine, he ran into a classic pain: he only needed a car for a few hours to resolve quick issues.
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The problem? No traditional rental company offered this solution in an intelligent way.
The market required full daily rates, endless paperwork, queues at counters and trips to distant branches. Why not decouple time and allow hourly split rentals?
Together with his partner, Diego Lira, he founded what would change this logic. The brand was born precisely with the purpose of reducing bureaucracy in the vehicle rental process, bringing freshness to a segment dominated by traditional structures and lacking innovation.
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A pioneer in 100% digital rental, Turbi has positioned itself as a technology company applied to mobility.
The closing data for 2025 attest to the value of this choice: the company ended the year with consolidated revenue of R$392 million, which represents a significant growth of 45% compared to 2024.
This advance was supported by the robustness of its fleet, which reached the mark of 7 thousand vehicles after the activation of around 3,500 new cars over the period.
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The power of digital and hyperconvenience
Even with the significant increase in the supply of automobiles, the brand’s value proposition sustained the heated demand, increasing the average utilization rate (UTR) to 71.6% under a 100% owned fleet operating model.
On the user’s side, the big difference lies in the entirely fluid experience.
The entire flow — from hiring and picking up to returning the vehicle — occurs through the application, using connected devices and the internet of things (IoT).
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To make this journey happen without friction or human contact, the fleet is entirely monitored by proprietary telemetry and artificial intelligence technologies, which help predict demand and optimize safety.
Even damage identification has been simplified, being carried out autonomously based on photos sent by the customers themselves. This convenience generated historical milestones of satisfaction, symbolized by the achievement of the RA1000 seal, the 8.9 rating on Reclame Aqui and a record Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 68.
Currently, with coverage in more than 12 cities and the metropolitan region of São Paulo, Turbi eliminates paperwork by providing approximately 300 partner parking lots that operate 24 hours a day.
According to Daniel, this proximity network, combined with vehicles that are always new, complete from the factory and with low mileage, is the main strength in competing with the physical and plastered structures of conventional rental companies.
Efficiency in the ecosystem and financial strength
The operational maturity of 2025 was also reflected in notable levels of profitability.
The rental unit (RAC) recorded an EBITDA margin of 55% — a significant jump of 33 percentage points compared to 22% in 2024 —, reaching a peak of 64% in December, a seasonally favorable period for the sector.
Daniel considers that this financial performance is the result of a lean cost structure, based on the intensive use of artificial intelligence and the continuous dilution of administrative expenses as the business gains scale.
The own fleet model has proven its resilience, ensuring greater control over asset preservation and attracting the confidence of the capital market to finance the next steps.
To sustain this expansion trajectory with discipline, the company designed an intense fundraising schedule to strengthen its capital structure.
In the first quarter of the year, Turbi accessed the credit market and raised R$188 million through debentures and structured lines, a move that was followed by a capital increase of R$80 million in July.
In the third quarter, the company consolidated the largest bank funding in its history by raising R$156 million from Itaú.
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To crown the period, it ended the year by securing new lines of working capital and vehicle debt with partners such as Santander, C6 and Banco Rendimento, operations that diversified its portfolio of creditors and guaranteed the financial impetus necessary to sustain operational growth.
This ecosystemic vision intelligently extends to the Used Cars vertical, used as the main route for demobilizing the company’s assets. Under the Turbi Seminovos brand, the company sells highly attractive cars — complete models, with around a year and a half of use and low mileage.
In 2025, sales grew 39% compared to the previous year, totaling 1,784 vehicles sold, driven by the opening of new physical stores in the North and East zones of São Paulo.
The plan for 2026 foresees doubling the number of stores to consolidate retail as the priority channel. As Turbi’s CRO, Luiz Bonini, explains, direct sales to the end consumer better capture the residual value of assets, reaching an average sale price of R$93,900 (21% higher than the previous year), approaching the Fipe table, while B2B lots remain strategic to maintain volumetric liquidity.
The continuous search for new rifts
With the operational bases consolidated, future plans aim to expand its presence in the mobility chain. Strategic planning outlines the evolution towards an ecosystem integrated by proprietary technological solutions.
Among the innovations under development are artificial intelligence systems aimed at autonomously detecting damage and dirt in vehicles, as well as fully automated pick-up points with facial recognition.
In the field of financial services, the company introduced Trato, a vehicle financing arm that uses telemetry data from the operation itself to evaluate credit profiles and mitigate default risks in a competitive manner.
To give traction to this new phase, Turbi plans to raise around R$750 million focused exclusively on gaining scale for its fleet. The strategy encompasses a global equity round advised by Santander Investment Banking, seeking to optimize financial costs and strengthen the balance sheet in a scenario of interest rate flexibility.
At the same time, the geographic expansion cycle foresees the debut in capitals outside the state of São Paulo, establishing the goal of reaching 12 thousand operating vehicles.
Eduardo Portelada, Director of Investor Relations, reinforces that growth reconciles a healthy combination between debt and equity, preserving financial discipline.
Turbi didn’t invent the wheel…
Neither cars… nor the concept of renting them. The great merit of its founders was realizing that there was an analogous and exhausting link in a long journey.
By isolating this pain, they decoupled time, turned hours into units of value, and delivered convenience through lines of code and real-time data. The result is a solid business model that didn’t need to recreate the world from scratch.
Here’s a challenge for your own business: are you still wasting energy trying to create an unprecedented solution for the planet, or have you already started looking for the ideal gap to simplify the lives of those who consume your market?
Think about it.
