The automotive. For more than a century, it’s gotten us where we needed to be — to work and school, on errands and planned activities, and out for leisure and on vacations. Cars are often one of the biggest purchases we’ll make in our lifetimes and we trade them every six years. The pre-owned auto sales market is enormous (42 million cars sold annually) yet fragmented and fraught with trust and quality challenges. When Vroom set out to build a consumer-centric platform that could vastly improve the car buying and selling experiences for millions of Americans every year, we were thrilled at the opportunity to be along for the ride.
The team at Vroom saw the opportunity to remake car buying from a historically analog transaction where, even today, fewer than 1% of all used auto sales are happening online, into a consumer-first digital experience. Stressful negotiations and limited stock could be replaced by a wide selection of available cars, transparency in pricing, and user flows for selling and buying cars that would be almost as easy as ordering ahead your favorite coffee. This is a vertical that is desperate for a makeover globally. In addition to Vroom in the U.S., we’ve backed Cazoo in the UK and Spinny in India.
When you set out to remake the largest consumer industry in the U.S., it’s going to be complicated. Buy, refurbish, sell, finance, transport, deliver all across the country — the logistics are non-trivial. Vroom has built a data-driven platform that understands and optimizes every facet of the process. It is that platform that sets the stage for being able to execute this business at massive scale while maintaining the ability to deliver at current market pricing with exceptional customer support.
IPOs are a milestone event but they are among the first chapters of the story for an enduring company. We’re incredibly proud of what CEO Paul Hennessey, Chairman of the Board Bob Mylod, and the entire team at Vroom have accomplished. And thank you to our partner, GC Managing Director Adam Valkin who led our investment back in 2015 as well as to our terrific co-investors and partners.
— Team GC
