With the newly secured funding, AutoFi is set to bolster its business operations across the board, first by hiring more staff particularly to boost the engineering and customer-facing teams.
San Francisco-based automotive digital retailing solution provider, AutoFi has successfully secured the sum of $85 million in funding from top venture capital firms in the automotive industry. As announced by the company, the funding round enjoined participation from Santander Holdings USA Inc, SVB Financial Group, the parent of Silicon Valley Bank, and Crosslink Capital.
The funding round effectively places AutoFi at nearly a $700 million valuation, and since its inception, the company has continued to see a growing interest in its products by consumers as well as in the potency of its models by its teaming investors.
“We are humbled to have some of the world’s leading financial institutions share our vision to bring innovation to automotive commerce,” said Kevin Singerman, CEO, and co-founder of AutoFi. “Finance is a critical part of how people buy and sell vehicles and continues to be a main source of friction in the automotive retail process. Finance must be more integrated into digital experiences. With this additional capital, we will double down on our mission to bring joy and trust in this market by enabling banks, captives, and specialty finance companies to better support the massive transition of offline to online commerce.”
AutoFi to Use the Funding in Bolstering Its Business Operations
With the newly secured funding, AutoFi is set to bolster its business operations across the board, first by hiring more staff particularly to boost the engineering and customer-facing teams. For the past four years, AutoFi has experienced consistent revenue growth trends and it has notably increased the size of its workforce by almost double to 220 in the past year.
The funding will help the startup to do more by bringing new products that will give both auto dealers and prospective buyers the best transactional experiences available. AutoFi received and processed over 1 million requests for auto financing in the past year, with overall sales amounting to $3 billion respectively, a good feat most of the company’s investors are now privy of.
“AutoFi is leading the digital evolution of car buying by combining innovation in automotive finance and retailing,” said Mahesh Aditya, President, and CEO of Santander Consumer USA. “We want to help dealers sell as many vehicles as possible, and AutoFi’s platform makes it easier for dealers to do business with Santander Consumer, connecting them more efficiently and effectively with consumers, helping complete transactions faster, and bringing finance innovation into the car buying process. We are privileged to be part of AutoFi’s growth story.”
The funding received will also help AutoFi to introduce such products as the “RealPayments” solution. This tool is a cloud-based “pricing platform allows auto finance companies to extend their decisions and pricing capabilities into point-of-search shopping experiences.”
With the backing from its investors, AutoFi aims to game the narrative in the auto acquisition world, a move similar to the revolutionary approach electric vehicle startups like Lucid Group Inc (NASDAQ: LCID) amongst others are contemplating when they secured funding to go public.
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