YC-funded CarWoo is announcing its Version 2 launch today. In the same space as TrueCar, CarWoo is a reverse auction marketplace for cars i.e. it makes car dealers bid for your business and focuses on covering all aspects of car buying transactions up to purchase. In the true spirit of a marketplace, Carwoo says it saves consumers an average of $3763 by making dealers compete against each other.
Says co-founder Tommy McClung, “There’s thousands of different things you have to think about when you’re buying, and our plan is to make that process as easy as possible from start to finish.”. In the traditional car buying process a consumer would have multiple dealers, doing what CarWoo does on their own.
New features in CarWoo Version 2 include the ability to see offers from dealers on leases instead of just purchases and a name your own price feature on dealer offers, allowing even more of the functionality of an in real life dealer relationship from your computer. Buyers can also now engage with dealers across brands when trying to decide between a BMW and an Audi for example.
Along with sale price, CarWoo customers will also be able to get “out the door price” estimates, i.e. prices that include taxes, license, registration which can add up to several thousands of dollars on top of the price you have to pay. In addition, Carwoo 2 will include an e-bay like dealer reputation and ratings system, where buyers can rate their experience with a given dealer as a warning to future buyers. CarWoo founder Tommy McClung says that in fact 53% of the time buyers don’t choose the lowest deal because into account the dealer’s reputation.
CarWoo is also announcing two new partnerships, the first with autoguide Driverside and the second with autobuying guide Nadaguides, which offers car buying information to consumers. CarWoo is currently working with over 5000 dealers nationwide.
Carwoo has $6 million in funding from Y Combinator, Interwest, and notable angels like Paul Buchheit, Joshua Schachter and Aydin Senkut. In order to celebrate the release of CarWoo Version 2, CarWoo will be making their $19 basic plan free (which guarantees that 2-3 dealers will bid for your purchase) for the month of February.
Y Combinator is a venture fund which focuses on seed investments to startup companies. It offers financing as well as business consulting along with other opportunities to 2-4 person companies looking to take an idea to a product. Y Combinator looks for companies with “good” ideas over companies with experience and a business model. The company made its first investments in Summer 2005. Y Combinator selects companies to finance and consult with twice a year. They are located in...
CarWoo! is an online new-car buying service and marketplace. Buyers come to CarWoo!, state which car they are looking for and CarWoo!’s network of over 10,000 dealers compete to sell the buyer the car. Technically the product is a semi-anonymous (first name, last initial, zip code) engagement tool. The buyer’s personal contact information (address, phone number, email) are kept private until the buyer accepts an offer from the dealer they want to buy the car from....
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