BacklotCars completes historic $425M exit, joining ‘power and fierce entrepreneurial spirit’ of KAR Global
November 13, 2020 | Startland News Staff
The $425 million acquisition of Kansas City-based BacklotCars is complete, nearly two months to the day it was announced.
“There is so much energy and excitement around this combination with our employees and with our customers,” Justin Davis, president and co-founder of BacklotCars, said in a release announcing the milestone acquisition’s completion Thursday by KAR Global.
“I’m proud of what the BacklotCars team has built and the thousands of strong dealer partnerships we’ve developed over the past six years,” Davis continued. “And I can’t wait to introduce the innovation, power and fierce entrepreneurial spirit of KAR Global to our culture, our products and our customer base.”
Believed to be the biggest exit on record within Kansas City’s startup ecosystem, BacklotCars announced the sale in September and its founders intentions to continue working within the company — which KAR will leave running in the metro.
Since 2014, BacklotCars has amassed a network of customers across 46 states. It has scaled its operations and marketplace, leveraging technology to deliver upon the mission of making wholesale easy, the company previously told Startland News.
After significant expansion in 2019, the company’s growth accelerated in 2020 as COVID-19 forced the automotive industry to take a digital-first approach to wholesale.
Justin Davis, BacklotCars; Back2KC 2018
Click here to learn more about BacklotCars.
BacklotCars joins a fleet of digital marketplaces within the KAR portfolio, including TradeRev, ADESA.com, and OPENLANE — the largest private label platform for exclusive, off-lease inventory in North America.
“We are laser-focused on providing dealers with the most efficient, convenient and economically advantageous digital marketplaces to sell and source inventory,” said Peter Kelly, president of KAR Global.
BacklotCars is set to help the company accelerate company growth into new markets while keeping a steady hand on the wheel of operations in existing cities, KAR said in a release.
The startup employs 187 full-time employees, 90 based in Kansas City. KAR has no plans to move BacklotCars from its local headquarters — which it established in the renovated Lightwell building last fall.
2020 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Roasterie founder Danny O’Neill takes historical look on Midwest coffee culture
Editor’s note: In partnership with the KC Greats podcast, hosted by Scott Parman, Startland News hopes to offer its audience more avenues to learn about entrepreneurs in Kansas City. Opinions expressed in this commentary are the author’s alone. In this episode, Roasterie founder and CEO Danny O’Neill answers the question: Why coffee? In the early…
Jeff Shackelford: Here’s how to land Digital Sandbox funding
When it comes to pitching their startups, most Kansas Citians err on the side of selling themselves short. At least that’s what the Digital Sandbox KC’s Jeff Shackelford told a crowd Tuesday at an event helping community members who are interested in pitching to the incubator-style program. Launched in 2013, Digital Sandbox has supported a…
The education system is broken — these Kansas Citians want to fix it
As you may remember or have experienced with your own child, there seems to come a point in one’s educational journey where kids ask themselves — what’s the point? The answer has always been, so that you can get good grades, to get into a good college to then get a good job. The problem with…
What’s Kansas City doing at SXSW 2017 this year?
March is about to get weird. Startland News is once again returning to the weirdness of Austin, Texas, for the annual insanity that is the SXSW Conference. Like last year, we’ll be venturing to the Lone Star State to report on the Kansas City contingent at arguably the nation’s top conference for innovative ideas: South-by-Southwest…