Pleasant Grove — Carketa, the Utah-based developer of SaaS applications for the automotive industry, announced it closed a $6M Series Seed Financing led by Origin Ventures and Crosslink Capital with additional funding from Hack VC, Lancaster, and I2BF.

Carketa’s mission is to help independent and franchise automotive dealers optimize every aspect of their dealerships by selling more vehicles in less time, for more profit.

Carketa, founded in 2019, is focused on redefining the used car selling experience. “With this round of funding, Carketa is expanding sales internationally to independent and franchise dealers and accelerating the release of exciting new tools,” says Carketa CEO, Brady Thurgood.

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 (Recon) process to simply sell more cars per month.  Jason’s experience with online selling solutions proved “they are outdated and clunky”. Carketa is revolutionizing dealers’ current processes while tightly coupled with the Carketa Condition Report, a 200+ point inspection system detailing a vehicle’s current condition. Dealers need a Current Condition Report to sell online.

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,” says 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.”

Crosslink Capital is based in San Francisco, and led Carketa’s Pre-Seed round in August 2020.  Jim Feuille, Partner at Crosslink explains, “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.”

Carketa is expanding its sales team across the US and Canada. “We’re excited about Carketa’s future,” Thurgood says. “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.”

Carketa is easy to use, automates the recon process, eliminates bottlenecks, and helps dealers sell more cars faster. With Carketa Recon a dealer can upload their inventory from their Dealer Management Software (DMS) and manage their vehicles from acquisition to customer purchase through active inventory management and vehicle valuations. With Carketa Connect, dealers and customers can track the car through the process, often selling the car before it’s frontline ready. “Carketa has helped my dealership set record-setting sales months even through Covid,” says Berry.