Awayco Expands Innovative Experience Platform to Include Mountain Sports, Grows Leadership Team

SAN FRANCISCO, California (January 25, 2019) – Awayco, an experience platform that connects adventure seekers with premium outdoor gear in key locations around the world, announced today that it has launched its mountain category in North America, Europe, and Japan, offering premium skis and snowboards, with mountain bikes coming soon. To support its growth into the category, Awayco also announced the appointment of former professional skier, lawyer, and commercial director of Black Crows skis, Chris Booth, as VP of EMEA Business Development.

Since Awayco’s launch in December 2017, the San Francisco-based tech company has built a large and engaged global community of members who have the opportunity to experience premium gear via retailers in more than 50 destinations worldwide. Awayco members can sign up for free and reserve their experience today or for a future date, to ride the best skis, boards, and splitboards from brands like DPS, Faction, Black Crows, Jones, Burton, YES, Moss Snowstick and Ride in iconic destinations globally.

Founded by CEO Gideon Silverman (previously Product Manager at Google) and CXO Francesco Nerieri (Director of Engineering at Google), Awayco brings not only a new way for consumers to experience premium products but a new channel for the outdoor industry to build their audience, and engage and monetize customers.

“Technology should make it easy for people to connect with the unique communities and cultures that define our passions for mountains, roads, oceans and waves,” Silverman said, “and as the custodians of these cultures and communities, we believe in empowering local retailers. Awayco started with rebuilding the rental experience, but we’re not stopping there. We are building a more economical, better way for anyone to live their passions, everywhere, in a sustainable and affordable way. We give Awayco partner brands and retailers a share of the upside, because we believe everyone can win.”

For brands, retailers, and the industry, it is a new deal. Awayco brings partners a new revenue channel that reduces inventory risk and improves cash flow for retail affiliates while building margins. Via the Awayco platform, brands drive motivated customers into specialty retailers over and over and over again to experience the most innovative products at the best locations.

Through a seamless in-store booking platform and a free Awayco kiosk, Awayco elevates customer experiences and simplifies the rental process. Awayco supports shop staff with 10 second sign-up, zero admin, automatic payment, and insurance included, allowing retailers to do what they do best: make people happy with great service and friendly product advice. Awayco members can also browse and reserve an affiliate’s Awayco fleet from anywhere in the world.

Awayco is committed to building lasting, long-term partnerships with its retailers and connecting people to brick and mortar businesses to engage in more personal interactions, customer service, expertise and experience.

Booth joins Awayco to lead its growing business development and marketing initiatives, following his role leading marketing, sales, ecommerce and customer service for Black Crows skis through its dramatic rise over the past four years.

“In many ways, Awayco is an extension of Black Crows,” explained Booth. “Black Crows is about making really good products that people care about; Awayco is about helping people experience them more. I look forward to building a new way of connecting people with the things they are passionate about, and motivating people into local retailers discover them. This is the change I hope to see in our world.”

“Chris’ industry expertise, creativity and inherent passion for experience fuses perfectly with our mission.” said Silverman. “There’s no better person to lead our growth into the mountain sports categories, driving consumer awareness and cultivating new retailer and brand partnerships.”

Awayco will attend the Outdoor Retailer Snow Show January 30th-February 1st in Denver, Colorado. For retailer inquiries, connect Vp of Business Development, Dean Granoff, at dean@awayco.com or stop by booth #44128-UL during the show. All media inquiries can be directed to Cassie Abel at cassie@whitecloudcommunication.com. Chris Booth is reachable at chris@awayco.com.

About Awayco

Awayco is an experience platform that connects its members with premium outdoor gear in the ocean, mountain and road spaces. With a rapidly growing network of locations and destinations around the world, Awayco lets you travel lighter, discover new equipment and live your greatest passions. For more details about the Awayco brand and mission, or to join the community, visit awayco.com or @awayco_

About Gideon Silverman, Founder and CEO Awayco

Gideon is committed to advancing what he sees as the basic responsibility of humanity: making the world better. Awayco is his life’s work, to mitigate greed and waste and create millions of moments of joy by building a global technology brand which transforms the outdoors into a shared resource for this planet. Gideon has been building the skills to realize this vision over the course of his career. He studied mathematics, finance and law (with dual highest honors) at University of Sydney, worked to solve complex problems as a Consultant at McKinsey & Company, started two companies and sold one, then moved to Silicon Valley to attend Stanford University’s prestigious MBA program. Gideon joined Google as a Product Manager where he met his co-founder Francesco Nerieri, a Director of Engineering. A few years later, Gideon moved into Francesco’s basement in the Outer Sunset district of San Francisco and set up Awayco’s global headquarters a few blocks away so they could build Awayco together.

About Francesco Nerieri, Founder and CXO Awayco

Francesco grew up building software, and reading books of Philosophy. He wrote his first computer program at the age of 5 on a VIC-20. He holds degrees in artificial intelligence and computer science from the University of Bologna, his home town. After working for a systems security company in Italy, Francesco joined Google in 2006 and since then has played a key role in the development of many products on consumer and enterprise teams across three continents. He is the author of the Android push notifications system, Google Cloud Messaging. Francesco has experience managing large engineering organizations, and holds multiple patents in the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Francesco met Gideon at Google after devising an ingenious solution to remaining “on call” while surfing, and is a passionate outdoorsman having been an avid snowboarder, alpinist, skydiver and downhill mountain biker. Francesco sees Awayco as his next contribution to the planet. Francesco and Gideon are building Awayco to give people unforgettable experiences at scale.