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
Neighborly nabs $5.5M from Formation 8, Ashton Kutcher
Neighborly, a San Francisco-based startup with an office in Kansas City, recently landed a multi-million dollar investment for its community investment marketplace. The company, which relocated its headquarters from Kansas City to San Francisco after struggling to raise local capital, raised $5.5 million from venture capital firms Formation 8 and Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures, according…
Techweek Wednesday: Big Data Summit
Techweek Kansas City has arrived with dozens of events scheduled around the city each day. Wednesday’s scheduled events are included below. Don’t forget to check whether the event is RSVP-only. Big Data Summit Who: The Big Data Summit spans Wednesday and Thursday, with the bulk of the events on Wednesday. The summit events start with…
5 takeaways from most entrepreneurial city report
A report analyzing progress on Kansas City’s goal to become America’s most entrepreneurial city highlighted a trove of information on the area’s early-stage business community. KCSourceLink’s second-annual “We Create KC” report dissects the metro’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, including its headway toward realizing a challenge to become the nation’s most entrepreneurial city. Expounding on such metrics as…
KC lands federal ‘Smart Cities Initiative’ grant
The White House announced a new ‘Smart Cities Initiative’ this week that will bolster the Kansas City tech community. The $160 million grant has a slew of moving parts, but one portion includes a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation that 15 communities, including Kansas City, will benefit from. The exact amount each…