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Auto1 Group<\/a>, a nearly five-year-old, Berlin-based used-car marketplace,\u00a0just announced a huge round \u2014 \u20ac360 million ($404 million) in debt and equity financing\u00a0that includes \u20ac75 million ($84.2 million) from Princeville Global, itself a Hong Kong-based investment firm with a second office in San Francisco.<\/p>\n Why the excitement over Auto1? Momentum, seemingly.<\/p>\n The company, which values and buys used cars from individuals, dealerships, and manufacturers, then sells them for a profit to other dealerships, says it facilitated\u00a0330,000 vehicle transactions on its platform last year. It also says it reached revenue of \u20ac1.5 billion. Indeed, in\u00a0a press statement released late last week, cofounder and co-CEO Christian Bertermann said the company will use its new funding to capture what it hopes will soon be 10 percent of Europe\u2019s used sales car market.<\/p>\n It\u00a0has plenty of competition, of course. Among its rivals are the\u00a0giant dealer groups\u00a0Emil Frey\u00a0and AVAG Holding, which are headquartered in Switzerland and Germany, respectively.<\/p>\n Plenty of used car marketplaces have also lost their thrust at some point, including Beepi, a direct-to-consumer platform founded in 2013 that was sold for parts<\/a> earlier this year after raising $150 million from investors.<\/p>\n In fairness, Beepi was mismanaged, according to TechCrunch sources, including by paying \u201cgrossly high salaries<\/a>.\u201d Beepi, along with a spate of other used-car startups that includes Vroom<\/a>, Shift<\/a>, and Carvana<\/a>, also featured a rather different business model than Auto1. Instead of selling cars directly to consumers via the Internet, Auto1 isn\u2019t looking to skip the dealership; it\u2019s betting consumers want to literally kick the tires.<\/p>\n Auto1 also uses its own cash to buy the cars and store them until they\u2019re sold to dealers (thus the big debt component in its fundraise).\u00a0According to a 2015 Bloomberg story<\/a> about the company, this speeds up the process for sellers from an average of 90 days in Europe to closer to 10 days.<\/p>\n Auto1 was cofounded by Bertermann \u2014 a former VP of product at Groupon \u2014 soon after he struggled to sell off two old cars that belonged to his grandmother. His cofounder is Hakan Koc, who was previously the chief product officer at the online home furnishings company\u00a0Home24<\/a>. They met while working in the same building.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s\u00a0newest round of funding, which officially closed a bit earlier this year, also includes Baillie Gifford & Co. and Target Global, and it values the company at $2.8 billion.<\/p>\n Some points of comparison: 24-year-old, CarMax, which is among the largest used-car companies in the U.S., is valued at roughly $12 billion by public market shareholders, and\u00a021-year-old AutoNation, which sells both new and pre-owned vehicles in the U.S., enjoys a public market cap of $4 billion.\u00a0Europe\u2019s largest used-car companies remain privately held.<\/p>\n Auto1\u2019s earlier backers\u00a0include DST Global, Piton Capital, DN Capital, and Cherry Ventures.<\/p>\n Featured Image: welcomia<\/a>\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/11\/shutterstock_224409601.jpg?w=680\")
Auto1 Group, a nearly five-year-old, Berlin-based used-car marketplace,\u00a0just announced a huge round — \u20ac360 million ($404 million) in debt and equity financing\u00a0that includes \u20ac75 million ($84.2 million) from Princeville Global, itself a Hong Kong-based investment firm with a second office in San Francisco. Why the excitement over Auto1? Momentum, seemingly. The company, which values… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
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