Carketa collects $6M in venture series seed funding

Carketa continued to stay on a positive trajectory last week, landing more financial resources to grow the dealership solutions software company.

The Utah-based developer of SaaS applications for the automotive industry announced it closed a $6 million series seed financing led by Origin Ventures and Crosslink Capital with additional funding from Hack VC, Lancaster and I2BF.

Founded in 2019, Carketa’s mission is to help independent and franchised dealers optimize every aspect of their operation by selling more vehicles in less time, for more profit.

“With this round of funding, Carketa is expanding sales internationally to independent and franchise dealers and accelerating the release of exciting new tools,” Carketa chief executive officer Brady Thurgood said in a news release.

Carketa co-founder Jason Berry also owns Action Auto, one of Utah’s fastest-growing independent car dealerships. Carketa was initially formed to improve the reconditioning process to simply sell more cars per month.  Berry’s experience with online selling solutions turned out to be “outdated and clunky.”

Carketa is looking to improve dealers’ current processes while tightly coupled with the Carketa Condition Report, a 200-point inspection system detailing a vehicle’s current condition.

Origin Ventures is based in Chicago and was an early backer of BacklotCars.

“The automotive space is undergoing immense transformation right now. Between COVID, innovation from online players, and the ongoing supply issues, the industry is just ripe for disruption,” said Scott Stern, partner at Origin Ventures.

“Carketa is uniquely positioned to help digitize and modernize one of the most important processes within any dealership — reconditioning. With better insights and better data, the company has immense opportunity ahead of it,” Stern continued.

Crosslink Capital is based in San Francisco, and led Carketa’s pre-seed round last August.

“We have watched Carketa make a major difference to its customers since launching their first product and we are excited for the next of many chapters together. We are building a category-defining company.” Crosslink partner Jim Feuille said.

Carketa looks to provide an easy to use tool to automate the recon process, eliminates bottlenecks and help dealers sell more vehicles faster.

With Carketa Recon, dealers can upload their inventory from their dealer management software (DMS) and manage their vehicles from acquisition to the customer purchase through active inventory management and vehicle valuations.

With Carketa Connect, dealers and customers can track the vehicle through the process, often selling the vehicle before it’s frontline ready.

“Carketa has helped my dealership set record-setting sales months even through COVID,” Berry said.

Earlier this year, Carketa became a partner of CDK Global.

Last week, Carketa also indicated that it’s expanding its sales team across the U.S. and Canada.

“We’re excited about Carketa’s future,” Thurgood said. “Online car selling is changing fast and our new and upcoming software tools will accelerate the process. We are fortunate to be in a position to help dealers deliver a more efficient car buying/selling experience.

“Through smart technology, the Carketa software is helping our dealerships streamline their processes, optimizing all areas of their dealership,” he went on to say.