Automotive SaaS platform, Tekion has raised $250 million Series D funding from Alkeon Capital and Durable Capital.
The funding round has valued Tekion at over $3.5 billion. Other investors, including Hyundai Motor Company, Advent International and Index Ventures, and some dealer groups across the US also participated in the round.
Founded in Silicon Valley, Tekion employs over 1,000 innovators globally. The company is disrupting a 50-year reliance on aging Dealer Management System platforms, with its cloud-native automotive retail platform, Automotive Retail Cloud (ARC).
Its dealership software platform uses big data, machine learning, and AI to seamlessly bring together OEMs, retailers/dealers and consumers. With its configurable integration and greater customer engagement capabilities, ARC claims to simplify the dealer/consumer relationship and journey.
Tekion plans to invest this fresh capital in accelerating its ARC platform rollout to dealers globally, setting up a customer experience center and expanding product innovation hubs in Pleasanton, CA and Austin, TX, along with focusing on continuous product innovation, and expansion in India.
Further, the company will also invest in expanding 24/7 support capabilities with a key initiative in-progress: Automotive Support Center of Excellence in West Chester, Ohio, among other things.
“Tekion is experiencing strong tailwinds in a large, multi-billion-dollar market including cloud adoption for online retailing, connected vehicles, increased consumer expectations for seamless, digital car purchasing experiences and digital vehicle connectivity. By building a single, unified cloud platform for manufacturers and dealers, Tekion is also unlocking multiple new markets heretofore unavailable to legacy incumbents limited by archaic technology architecture. We believe Tekion is just getting revved up for its multi-year journey in redefining an industry and becoming the market’s leading and dominant player,” said Deepak Ravichandran, General Partner at Alkeon Capital.
“We have experienced phenomenal market acceptance during the past year. This strong round of funding validates industry and investors’ belief in Tekion’s disruption and our exceptional team of innovators. Our investors know that we’re future-driven, and they want to be part of our remarkable story,” said Jay Vijayan, Founder and CEO of Tekion.