carwow acquires Wizzle
HMT LLP advised car-buying comparison site carwow on its acquisition of used car-buying platform Wizzle for an undisclosed sum.
Launched in 2016 with the mission of making the important car buying process easier and simpler for consumers, carwow connects online car buyers with dealers and OEMs and is the brand of choice for more than 12m users who want to research, configure and find their perfect new car online. Last year, £2.5bn of new cars were sold on the carwow platform and almost 80% of buyers then had a car to sell.
Wizzle is the brainchild of Sébastien Duval who first set about building an app to help car dealers appraise and value used cars that had been driven onto used car forecourts. He quickly figured out that he could streamline the process for both dealers and customers by moving the entire process online, providing customers with the ability to profile their car so that they could share it with prospective dealers who might want to buy it. Wizzle now has more than 2,000 dealers using their platform who are buying more than 1,500 cars per month.
carwow plans to rapidly integrate the Wizzle used car selling service into its new car buying experience. While carwow has had a ‘Sell Your Car’ feature live for several years – driving over a million valuations in the last 12 months – it has only been able to provide a single offer from a single provider. By leveraging Wizzle’s technology platform, carwow will be able to provide multiple offers to customers and prioritise offering cars to dealer partners directly.
HMT undertook financial due diligence for carwow on this transaction.
John Viechmanis, Chief Operations Officer at carwow commented:
“The swift and successful acquisition of Wizzle is of massive significance for carwow as we build the most exciting marketplace business in the automotive industry. Thanks to this acquisition we can create more value and even better experiences for consumers, dealers and manufacturers alike. Thank you to HMT LLP for their hard work and advice throughout the acquisition.”
Paul Read commented:
“We are delighted to have advised the carwow team on their acquisition of Wizzle. With the integration of Wizzle’s car selling service to the carwow platform, carwow can create even greater value from its position as the leading new car buying platform. We look forward to working with them in the future as the business expands and grows.”
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