According to the private entrepreneur Joel Milne, he scaled, and then successfully sold the mobile repair service of Auto Repirsmith to autonate, he was harassed by a lasting problem.
The automotive retail industry has a communication problem. And it is expensive. Thousands of dealers and mechanics sellers – each with a number of software systems – there is no common language to facilitate communication with producers and other firms.
“We had this problem:” How do you’re employed with dealers and shops and talk to them when you run after repairing cars and try to get them business or get parts from them? ” – he said. “It is very fragmented, very difficult, very expensive to build all these non -standard integration with various stores.”
For example, the average lounge is based on over 40 different software systems, from dealer management systems and customer relationship management tools to digital retail platforms, services, wrestling and payment processing platforms.
Milne compared this to the financial services industry 20 years ago. FinTech Company Plaid, which mixes bank accounts with financial applications, helped finish this communication gap. Milne wants to do the same, but in the case of automotive retail sale.
Milne is now the founder and general director of the latest startup called Autunify, who built the API interface to enable sellers and service stores in real time with producers and software suppliers that drive their activities.
Autunify has been working quietly for nine months and is based in Santa Monica, California. After piloting with many clients in 2024, Autunify now opens its sales to the industry.
Autunify is the latest startup that got here out of a long -term partnership between UP.Labs and Porsche. The startup also raised $ 5 million in a round run by UP.Partners. These funds will help startup to scale their working strength with nine, which it’s going to apply today to about 20 until the end of the 12 months.
“Really, for the rest of the year is to build technology and build a sales pipeline,” he said.
Up.Labs is not a Venture company, regardless that it emerged and works in parallel with, partners. This is also not a corporate accelerator or incubator. An organization that began in the process Up.summit 2022 In Bentonville, Arkansas is structured as a Venture laboratory with a latest type of financial vehicle.
Up.Labs hits the partnership with the primary corporations – Porsche was the first – and then is working on identifying the biggest problems in the industry and creating startups with business models that solve these pain points. In unusual accent, these startups simply do not serve the company, in this case Porsche. To succeed, they have to be able to handle a wider market.
Up.Labs also closed similar offers from Alaska Airlines and JB Hunt.
The CEO of UP.LABS, John Kapt, said that he discovered some of the biggest challenges of the automotive industry during cooperation with Porsche. Until now, firms have launched 4 startups, including Pull systems, the software platform as a service that gives EV Suppliers’ Performance Management Software, manufacturers and operators, and Sensigo, which created the AI platform, which allows service techniques to quickly diagnose problems in modern, defined vehicle software.
According to Kapt, Autunify is the fourth startup, which stands out as one of the most important and most difficult problems to solve.
“This is exactly a kind of breakthrough for which we build: a company that not only solves a technical challenge, but basically transforms the way the entire industry operates,” he said.