Cars Adds Digital Vehicle Acquisition With Accu-Trade Group Addition

Online automotive marketplace Cars.com Inc. has finalized its acquisition of the Accu-Trade Group, which was announced last month, bringing real-time, VIN-specific appraisal and valuation data, instant guaranteed offer capabilities and logistics technology to the platform.

Cars paid $65 million to complete the transaction and might have to make future payments of $63 million, an amount that will be adjusted based on performance in the next three years.

“The acquisition of Accu-Trade appraisal technology facilitates our entry into the rapidly growing multi-billion digital vehicle acquisition market,” Cars CEO Alex Vetter said in a Tuesday (March 1) press release.

“The acquisition of this scalable technology further advances our platform strategy and accelerates our end-to-end capabilities, while building on our competitive advantages and delivering additional shareholder value,” he said.

The company will soon offer sell-it-yourself capabilities, allowing the almost 11 million annual private-party car sellers in the U.S. the option to sell directly to another consumer on the platform or to one of thousands of certified dealers.

The capabilities added through the Accu-Trade acquisition will be featured at the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center March 10-13 and integrated across the Cars.com platform soon after the show ends.

Related: Cars.com Extends End-to-End Capabilities by Adding Access to Finance, Used Vehicle Valuations

The recent additions of Accu-Trade and CreditIQ were made to streamline the vehicle financing process and the cut down on the challenges of valuing and selling a used car. The goal is to add a frictionless, omnichannel experience for car shoppers and sellers.

The company earned $7.7 million on sales of $623.7 million in 2021, it reported last month in its quarterly earnings call, despite a loss $6 million in the fourth-quarter loss related to one-time items associated with its CreditIQ acquisition.

CreditIQ, which enables instant online loan screening and approvals, is being piloted with about 100 dealers on the company’s Cars.com marketplace and on Dealer Inspire dealer websites before being scaled to a wider audience.