Kansas City-Based BacklotCars Acquired by KAR Global
Most people who are familiar with Revolution, have heard of our Rise of the Rest Bus Tours where we visit five startup ecosystems in five days, once a year, to shine a spotlight on a city’s startups and the groups and individuals who champion them. But many people may not know what happens after that. While our tour stop may be the start of our relationship with a city, it is most certainly not the end. We continue to stay in touch with our tour partners and revisit cities throughout the year for conferences and gatherings, connecting with founders and regional investors, so that we can have our finger on the pulse of what is happening in a particular city.
For example, in 2017, we returned to Kansas City at the invitation of our co-investors and friends at the KCRise Fund to participate in a community event and meet with their portfolio. It was at that event that we first met BacklotCars, a Kansas City-based online marketplace for wholesale used cars, and its co-founder/CEO, Justin Davis. Less than a year later, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund invested in the company, and today, we are pleased to announce that BacklotCars was acquired by KAR Global (NYSE: KAR) for $425M, a win for the Kansas City ecosystem.
BacklotCars exemplifies the Rise of the Rest journey that we so often talk about: start with deep founder domain expertise, leverage technology to disrupt a large and important economic market (in this case, used autos), and build an industry-changing company with world class talent who possess Midwestern work ethic and moxie. Right off the bat, we were impressed with the company’s ability to rapidly expand across the U.S. and consistently capture a greater share of the used auto trading market by taking it fully online. After studying the legacy used car auction process, we recognized that the transition to online was inevitable and we were bullish on the BacklotCars leadership team to lead the charge.
We applaud the founding team, including Justin Davis, Ryan Davis, Josh Parsons and Fabricio Solanes on the company BacklotCars is today and look forward to seeing what it becomes in its next phase of growth. And we congratulate the Kansas City startup community. It is because of their supportive efforts that yet another company has proven that entrepreneurs can start and grow category leading businesses in “Rise of the Rest” ecosystems across the U.S.
