digital-retailing
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Space Auto wants your dealership to stop forgetting its customers
A car shopper can build a deal at midnight and still be asked to start again on Monday. Space Auto’s wager is that a shared customer record can make that small indignity disappear.
Dealer Inspire and the expensive art of the extra button
The dealership technology company grew by connecting the pieces of online car shopping. Its next challenge is teaching dealers how much they can gain by taking a few pieces away.
FordDirect and the Dealers Who Refused to Disappear
When the internet threatened to put someone else between Ford and its customers, dealers built a company of their own. A quarter-century later, FordDirect sells the tools that keep the local showroom in the picture.
Gubagoo and the car deal that forgot its own price
A shopper builds a deal online. A salesperson starts it again in the showroom. Gubagoo has built a business around making those two encounters remember each other.
CarNow and the customer who had to start over
A dealership can buy a shopper’s attention and still lose the sale between two screens. CarNow’s wager is that the missing ingredient is a conversation that remembers what came before.
The Quiet Software Empire Behind 40,000 Dealerships
LeadVenture built a portfolio for the dealerships that mainstream auto software often overlooks - the shops selling motorcycles, boats, tractors, RVs, trailers, tires and used cars. Its advantage is not one flashy app, but a network that turns scattered inventory into a coherent digital storefront.
The Dealer Website That Quietly Became the Whole Dealership
Dealer eProcess started with a dealer's frustration over websites that looked finished but did not sell. Its answer is Everest - one connected system that remembers shoppers, merchandises inventory and follows the deal from search box to showroom.
Cars Commerce Wants to Be the Operating System Behind Every Car Sale
Cars.com built the audience. Now its parent is connecting that traffic to dealer websites, appraisals, advertising and wholesale auctions - a bid to own more of the messy journey from search box to showroom.
Group 1 Automotive
Group 1 Automotive built a $22.6 billion business by treating the dealership as the beginning of a relationship, not the end of a sale. Its real engine sits behind the showroom door: service bays, parts counters, finance desks and a digital platform designed to keep drivers in the network.
Del Grande Dealer Group
Del Grande Dealer Group (DGDG) is the largest family-owned automotive group in the San Francisco Bay Area. Founded in 1998 with a single dealership, it now operates a portfolio of franchised new- and used-car dealerships across Northern California, representing more than a dozen brands. DGDG pairs a high-volume retail operation with a culture obsession - it has been named a Bay Area Top Workplace for more than a decade - and a digital-first buying experience it markets as No Brainer Pricing and No Brainer Checkout.
AutoFi
AutoFi is a San Francisco-based automotive commerce and finance platform that lets dealers sell and finance cars online and in the showroom. It connects buyers to a network of lenders, runs real-time credit decisioning, and powers checkout for big-name OEMs and dealer groups - most notably Ford Motor Credit.
Kevin Singerman
Kevin Singerman is the CEO and Co-Founder of AutoFi, a San Francisco-based automotive fintech company he co-founded in 2015 with Mandar Gokhale and Jonathan T. Palan. AutoFi has become a leading end-to-end automotive sales and financing platform, processing over 1 million financing requests and $3+ billion in vehicle sales annually, backed by $125M+ in funding including an $85M Series C at a $700M valuation. Singerman built his career at the intersection of finance and technology, with stints at Deutsche Bank, SunGard, Stephens Inc., and LendingClub before launching AutoFi to transform how cars are bought and sold.