Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST), a leading artificial intelligence (AI) lending platform, today announced Upstart Auto Retail software, including AI-enabled financing. The cloud-based solution enables a superior car buying experience for both consumers and dealerships. For the first time, this new software will provide access to Upstart-powered auto loans as well.
Upstart Auto Retail is the evolution of Prodigy Software, acquired by Upstart in April 2021. Since the beginning of 2021, the number of dealerships—also known as rooftops—signed up for the software has nearly tripled. With the addition of Upstart-powered loans, dealerships will be able to instantly offer affordable financing to more of their customers.
“Buying a car is an iconic and memorable experience for most Americans, but the financing step is where things often unravel,” said Dave Girouard, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Upstart. “Upstart Auto Retail will provide millions of consumers with a car buying experience worthy of 2021, including that all-important financing step.”
Each year, approximately $1 trillion of cars are sold in the US, and most of them are financed.1 Yet purchasing a car consistently ranks among the worst consumer experiences, with less than 1% of buyers satisfied with the current process. Upstart Auto Retail with AI-enabled loans will allow dealers to provide the online and in-store shopping experience that consumers demand, from shopping and vehicle selection to financing and check-out.
Upstart Auto Retail is an end-to-end retail platform that has helped top franchised dealers from 33 top brands such as Toyota, Honda, Subaru and Ford sell billions of dollars of new and used cars and increase customer satisfaction. More than $1 billion of vehicles were sold through the Upstart Auto Retail platform in Q2 2021.
DGDG, the largest family-owned dealer group in the San Francisco Bay Area, has been using what is now Upstart Auto Retail as the only retail solution across the entire dealership group since early 2020. DGDG is adding Upstart-powered auto loans as part of its retail process.
“The auto selling solution we’ve been using from Upstart has empowered our salespeople to make the buying process more transparent and helped sell more vehicles at a higher profit,” said Tony Corini, VP of Finance, from DGDG. “Now, by adding Upstart-powered financing, we look forward to approving more borrowers and continuing to develop our No Brainer checkout experience.”
Upstart is currently rolling out AI-powered lending to a limited number of dealers. It will be available in early 2022 to all dealers using the platform.
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