Autolist Inc., which calls itself the “Kayak for car-buying,” is looking at possible partnerships to introduce financing capabilities into its platform, said Autolist President Corey Lydstone.
“Being a small team, we focus on core products for now, but we have started looking into opportunities — and there are tons — to feed financing [for consumers] to help dealers close deals faster,” he said. “Financing is a little hard, because you really need to make a compelling offer in today’s market, but for some companies, like CarMax, it makes natural evolutionary sense to get into financing.”
Starting off as part of a popular apartment search platform Apartment List, Autolist became a separate entity two years ago. The company received a $2 million credit facility last month from longtime partner Square 1 Bank. “They have been working with us since the very start, for seven years now, so they understand our business, and know what we need from a more strategic perspective,” Lydstone said. “The credit facility will help us grow our business, with a primary focus of investing in our new product offerings and our engineering-focused team.”
Autolist is a vehicle search engine that currently lists 5 million used cars.
