January 21, 2019 — A flurry of several mergers and acquisitions last week among auto retail vendors started 2019 off with a bang. Through the first two weeks of the year, six deals have been announced. The fast start follows a record-breaking 2018 in which 77 deals were completed. Additionally, Cars.com announced last week its board retained…
January 17, 2019 — Digital Air Strike will announce two acquisitions this week bringing its total to three in the last 10 months. The company is acquiring Target Media Partners Interactive (TMPi), a lead generation ad tech firm, and Libra Systems, a financing, and leasing software company. With the two additions, Digital Air Strike now… Continue Reading
November 13, 2018 — A flurry of 26 deals since the beginning of September has pushed the year’s total to 64, a record for investments and acquisitions in the automotive retail vendor space. The blistering pace continued into the first week of November with data analytics firm Marchex’s purchase of Telmetrics and Infomedia’s acquisition of…
August 13, 2018 — Cox Automotive is announcing early Monday morning it has acquired vehicle subscription startup Clutch Technologies as part of the creation of its new Mobility Solutions Division. The moves are part of a restructuring that includes an ongoing intensive review of where its 34 brands and investments fit in its overall strategy…
July 15, 2018 — CDK Global will announce Monday morning it is acquiring the auto retail industry’s leading customer relationship management firm ELead1One, according to several sources familiar with the deal. The acquisition checks off several boxes for CDK while filling a big product hole — a viable integrated CRM platform with significant market share.… Continue Reading
April 17, 2018 — CDK Global announced this morning it has acquired Progressus Media, a mobile ad platform with solutions for social, display and search advertising. The company will be part of CDK’s Digital Advertising Group led by Jen Cole. Progressus Media, headquartered in Chicago, was co-founded in 2012 by Drew Marticke. CDK will maintain… Continue Reading
April 17, 2018 — Online used vehicle retailer Carvana announced this morning it has acquired Car360, an Atlanta-based start up that developed a mobile app with one the first commercially available uses of 3D computer vision, machine learning and augmented reality technology for the automotive industry. The acquisition adds 3D and augmented reality technology to the… Continue Reading
April 4, 2018 — Acquisition activity in the dealer website world suddenly has become hot with the third deal since last November. This afternoon, fusionZONE Automotive LLC announced it is acquiring competitor MotorWebs Inc. The acquisition is the 18th automotive retail vendor deal this year and follows Primus Capital’s majority investment into fusionZONE last November.… Continue Reading
April 4, 2018 — A flurry of announcements during the week of the annual National Automobile Dealers Assn.’s convention in late March capped what has been a busy first quarter for M&A activity for automotive retail vendors this year. The 17 investments and acquisitions through March puts the industry on a pace to nearly double… Continue Reading
March 8, 2018 — CDK Global is launching a flexible pricing dealer management system aimed at dealer groups consisting of one or two stores. The new DMS, being called DriveFlex, will be built from the ground up on the Amazon Web Services Cloud platform and will come with a new user-interface while providing for a… Continue Reading