UK-based Cazoo, an online used car marketplace, announced that it has acquired London-based vehicle data firm Cazana for approx £25M (approx €29.12M) in an all-cash deal.
This development follows the company’s recent debut on the NYSE, under the new ticker symbols, “CZOO” and “CZOO WS”, respectively. It also raised over $1B from the SPAC deal with a blank check company, AJAX 1.
Cazana helps motor retailers, insurers, and lenders digitally transform with big data and machine learning technologies to reduce risk, improve profits, and drive better global customer experiences.
Cazana’s subsidiary Car & Classic was not part of this deal and hence CEO Tom Wood and COO Christopher Varin will remain with the Car & Classic business.
Cazana’s offerings
Founded in 2012 by Tom Wood, Cazana was born from a frustration with the accuracy of traditional vehicle valuation data.
Wood says, “We wanted to better understand the data being used to calculate values and identify how valuations were trending over time. We took a blank sheet of paper to the problem of vehicle valuations and started by aggregating classified ads to create a unique pricing index, powered by Machine Learning.”
Cazana has over 50 employees globally and claims to have built a dataset of over 500 million historic vehicle transactions from over 40 countries including the UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. Its tools are used by car manufacturers, lenders, fleet owners, and insurers.
Aim of this acquisition
Cazana’s products, which include real-time vehicle valuation, pricing, and stock management tools, will enhance Cazoo’s capabilities to further optimise its car pricing and buying experience across the UK & Europe for the benefit of consumers.
The company has already sold over 35,000 cars in the UK since its launch less than 2 years ago.
Recently, the company also launched an all-inclusive monthly car subscription service for new as well as its used cars in the UK, and is gearing up to launch its proposition in both France and Germany later this year.
Alex Chesterman OBE, Founder & CEO of Cazoo, says, “Cazana has built one of the leading data insights platforms, providing tools which are used by manufacturers, lenders, fleet owners and insurers in the automotive space. I am looking forward to welcoming the Cazana team to Cazoo as we continue our mission to deliver the best car buying and selling experience to consumers across Europe.”
Everything about Cazoo
Cazoo, founded in 2018, is the brainchild of Alex Chesterman. It aims to become the “Uber” of the “used car marketplace”.
“Used cars are one of the last remaining consumer markets yet to benefit from any digital transformation,” Chesterman said soon after its launch.
Cazoo claims that it wants its customers’ car buying experience to be seamless, transparent, and convenient – just like purchasing any other product online. The company lists thousands of cars in stock at any time, all stored centrally in the Midlands. They are available either for home delivery anywhere in the UK or for collection from one of Cazoo Customer Centres within 72 hours. Every Cazoo car comes with a full 7-day money-back guarantee and a comprehensive 90-day warranty.
The company has raised around a total of €1.3B in funding f to date. It has grown its team to over 2,500 employees, mostly through acquisitions.
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