Tred raises $ 25 million to attract more car buyers to its online marketplace – EzAnime.net

Grant Feek, executive director of Tred. (Photo of Tred)

News: Peer-to-peer online marketplace Tred has raised $ 25 million in new funding to further expand its platform with the goal of making the entire used car buying and selling process faster and easier.

The essence: Tred customers can organize test drives, interact with salespeople, pick up a car or receive it without having to visit a dealership. Tred’s services also help with things like auto financing, vehicle protection, vehicle value reporting, and fraud protection.

Trip: The startup was launched as a Techstars Seattle graduate in 2012 and was initially a service that partnered with dealerships and delivered cars to people’s homes for test drives and sales. The shift to a different type of business began in 2015.

“If you look at the markets in general, they need a little time to develop because you need to create two different businesses, on the supply side and the demand side, which is difficult,” Feek said, adding that the Most of 2016 and 2017 was dedicated to automating Trek’s processes.

Growth: Beyond Seattle, Tred now has locations in Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Miami, Tampa Bay, Orlando, and Jacksonville. And it just entered six new markets, including Denver, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Indianapolis, Las Vegas and Chicago.

The new cash will be used to expand the company’s products, locations, partnerships, and engineering team. Tred employs about 30 people.

Sponsors: New and existing investors participated in the Series B round, including Vivek Raj at Geneses Investments; Nowlake Technologies led by Ian Anderson; and Paul Kerwin and Mike Kraus at CUNA MG. Tred has raised $ 37 million to date.

The industry: Tred competes with several other online car marketplaces, including Carvana, Vroom, and Carvago.

The pandemic created a major shift in the way people shop, and auto sales, which generally require serious time and in-person commitment, are also moving online. Tred is benefiting, and Feek doesn’t think the trend will reverse after the pandemic, as people feel more comfortable buying more things digitally.

The supply shock to auto dealers and auto parts makers is also a boon for Tred, as the delays have increased competition for those buying cars from private sellers.

“We’ve been growing quite a bit in the last two years,” Feek said, due to those two trends.

Last word: “We see a future where people transact auto much more regularly, every year or two, just using their phone instead of using the traditional Craigslist or dealership model every 10 years,” Feek said. “So we are very excited about the future of space and we are really excited to scale our model and hopefully be one of the main platforms that people use for it.”

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