TrueCar Completes $35.5M Financing

SANTA MONICA, Calif., July 20 /PRNewswire/ -- TrueCar announced today that it has secured $35.5M in new financing, including a $21.5M credit facility from Silicon Valley Bank. Participants in the financing also included USAA, Capricorn Investment Group, and GRP Partners. Based on a successful year of triple-digit growth, this financing will provide the company with additional expansion and acquisition capital. "We are really pleased to be working with the team at TrueCar. The Company has made great progress and we look forward to continuing to support its growth," said Jack Garza, Relationship Manager at Silicon Valley Bank.

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TrueCar was founded by Scott Painter, a pioneer in the online automotive retail space who is the founder of CarsDirect and Zag. Painter brings to TrueCar his unyielding commitment to improving the car-buying experience for consumers and dealers through transparency, upfront pricing, technology and the power of information. "Accurate and detailed information about what others are paying for a car is great for both the dealer and consumer because it provides complete trust and clarity around the transaction," said Painter. TrueCar is fundamentally committed to helping both consumers and the auto industry establish a sustainable economic relationship premised on radical clarity: informed consumers are more likely to buy, and dealers who embrace upfront pricing are likely to sell more cars without sacrificing margin. "TrueCar is a refreshing reboot that establishes a level of trust between consumers and dealers that has the opportunity to become a new standard for how cars are sold," added Painter.  

Today, well over 90% of shoppers begin their process on the Internet. The industry and the web get an A+ for the distribution of product information. As a result, the primary online activity of in-market car buyers has shifted to price discovery, the immediate step prior to making a purchase. And, with 75 million GenYers about to enter the new-car market, GenYers will be the most informed generation of shoppers in history. TrueCar makes their search easier by providing car shoppers with absolute price confidence around their purchase decision and by showing them what others have paid for the same car within the last 30 days. TrueCar's massive and ever-expanding database powers TrueCar's price curves and price reports, which are driving consumer and dealer adoption. Over the last year, TrueCar has become the most relied-upon source of new-car pricing information for the general media and has garnered more than 5,700 global media mentions to date, has generated over 6,500,000 impressions and now distributes over 1,000,000 TrueCar price reports per month.  

Many of the participants in the financing of TrueCar have strong ties to the automotive retail industry. USAA is consistently ranked as one of the top customer service brands in the country(i) and its members purchase more than 1,500,000 cars per year. Capricorn Investment Group was founded by Jeff Skoll, the founding President of eBay—one of today's most powerful marketplaces. They were also principal investors in Tesla Motors. GRP Partners has a deep knowledge of the automotive landscape with pioneering investments in iMotors and DealerTrack.

About TrueCar

TrueCar is committed to creating a sustainable retail distribution business model that is good for both consumers and dealers. It is premised on four tenets: 1) the new car has become a commodity; 2) consumers rely on the internet to make important purchase decisions; 3) price confidence is paramount to a positive car-buying experience; and 4) dealers who upfront price their vehicles sell more cars by earning consumer trust. TrueCar is focused on improving the time-consuming and frustrating task of buying a car so consumers know they received a fair deal.  Dealers benefit by using TrueCar's real-time, unbiased information about marketplace pricing to increase sales velocity and retain margin.

(i) According to Bloomberg Businessweek's 2010 list of "Customer Service Champs"

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Scott Painter

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SOURCE TrueCar