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TrueCar
TrueCar, Inc. is an automotive pricing and information website for new and used car buyers. The service allows users to see what others paid for any new or used vehicle in their local area and receive upfront prices from a network of over 15,000 TrueCar Certified Dealers. TrueCar is paid by dealerships so they can be introduced to and communicate with potential new and used car buyers. TrueCar reports its users purchase approximately 1 million cars from dealers in its network each year. The company is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, with a sales office Austin, TX. History 2005–2010: Early years TrueCar was originally incorporated under the name "Zag.com Inc." in Delaware in February 2005. Scott Painter and Tom Taira, along with other co-founders, started the business to provide white-label auto-buying programs to affinity groups. The company's initial partner was Capital One in order for its customers to arrange financing, access upfront pricing, and locate inv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scott Painter
Scott Painter (born September 30, 1968) is an American investor and entrepreneur in the technology and automotive industries. In 2016, he founded Fair, Inc., a Los Angeles-based automotive financial technology company. Previously, Painter founded and served as the CEO of TrueCar, Inc. . Prior to TrueCar, he was the founder and CEO of CarsDirect.com. He has advised a number of automotive businesses including Tesla motors. Early life and education Painter was born in Seattle on September 30, 1968, and grew up in Placer County, California, near Sacramento. He started his first company, Scott's Auto Dealing, at the age of 14. After high school, he joined the United States Army and trained to become a Spanish interrogator. He attended West Point, where he studied military strategy and systems engineering. While at West Point he served as class president before transferring to UC Berkeley, where he studied political economics. Career Painter left UC Berkeley before graduating to se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chip Perry
Victor A. Perry, better known as Chip Perry, is the former founding president and CEO of AutoTrader.com from 1997-2013. Education Perry holds a degree in Civil Engineering from University of Virginia, and earned an MBA, in 1980, from Harvard Business School. Career In 1997, Perry was the first employee of AutoTrader.com, and was CEO until 2013. In that time, AutoTrader became the largest third-party vehicle shopping website, with over $1.5 billion in annual revenue. As CEO, Perry oversaw a series of acquisitions at AutoTrader, including Kelley Blue Book, VinSolutions, vAuto and HomeNet Automotive, companies that are now part of the Cox Automotive group. Before joining AutoTrader, Perry worked in Los Angeles for the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. and at the business development arm of the ''Los Angeles Times''. After leaving AutoTrader in 2013, Perry was president and CEO of RentPath RentPath Inc. is a media company that owns Rent.com, ApartmentGuide.com, Lovely, and Renta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Honk (website)
Honk was a social automotive website developer headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company was co-founded by Tom Taira and Stephanie LaCrosse in 2009 to develop web and mobile solutions that enabled consumers to choose a car. Honk operated Honk.com, a website that featured user-generated car reviews, new car pricing information, and several social shopping features. A beta version of Honk.com was launched in November 2009. Honk’s “social recommendation engine” enabled consumers to find recommendations on cars based on their demographic and psychographic backgrounds. Using its social search tool, Honk users could input their age, sex, favorite hobbies, etc. and the social recommendation engine then looked to see which car models were most preferred by other people with the same characteristics. The Honk database featured anonymous data from several hundred thousand automobile shoppers and buyers in the United States. Honk.com was acquired by TrueCar TrueCar, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kelley Blue Book
Kelley Blue Book is an Irvine, California-based vehicle valuation and automotive research company that is recognized by both consumers and the automotive industry. The company is owned by the Cox Automotive subsidiary of Cox Enterprises. History The company began as the Kelley Kar Company founded by Les Kelley in 1918. Kelley started the company with three Model T Fords. His younger brother, Buster, worked with Kelley as a lot boy. By using data collected from the dealership, Kelley published the company’s first Blue Book in 1926, which became a standard guide in automotive trade in determining car value. Kelley Blue Book was formed in 1926, and the Kelley family continued its dealership business in Southern California for several decades. By the 1960s, the company moved from a car dealership to a specialty publisher and focused on the production of its automobile price guide. Kelley Blue Book guide became the first publication to use mileage to determine a car's value. In 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Upfront Ventures
Upfront Ventures, formerly known as GRP Partners, is a Santa Monica-based venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology companies. It is one of the largest venture capital firms in Los Angeles, with $2 billion in total raised funds. Since its founding in 1996, Upfront Ventures has invested in more than 200 companies, with notable exits including Ulta Beauty, Ulta, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Overture, PayPal Credit, TrueCar, Disney Digital Network, Kyriba, and Ring (company), Ring. History Upfront Ventures was formed in 1996 in Century City, Los Angeles under the name GRP Partners, founded by Yves Sisteron, Steven Dietz and Steve Lebow. GRP Partners was best known for investing in chain restaurants like P. F. Chang's and Starbucks, as well as retailers like Costco and Ulta Beauty, Ulta, but it also invested in tech companies such as PayPal Credit, Overture Networks, Overture, and Disney Digital Network. Mark Suster joined GRP Partners in 2007 as general manager, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Company
A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (listed company), which facilitates the trade of shares, or not (unlisted public company). In some jurisdictions, public companies over a certain size must be listed on an exchange. In most cases, public companies are ''private'' enterprises in the ''private'' sector, and "public" emphasizes their reporting and trading on the public markets. Public companies are formed within the legal systems of particular states, and therefore have associations and formal designations which are distinct and separate in the polity in which they reside. In the United States, for example, a public company is usually a type of corporation (though a corporation need not be a public company), in the United Kingdom it is usually a public limited company (plc), i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Series A Round
A series A round (also known as series A financing or series A investment) is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchange for their investment. It is usually the first series of stock after the common stock and common stock options issued to company founders, employees, friends and family and angel investors. Series A rounds are traditionally a critical stage in the funding of new companies. Series A investors typically purchase 10% to 30% of the company. The capital raised during a series A is usually intended to capitalize the company for 6 months to 2 years as it develops its products, performs initial marketing and branding, hires its initial employees, and otherwise undertakes early stage business operations. It may be followed by more rounds ( Series B, Series C, etc). Sources of capital Because there are no public exchanges listing their securi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vice President
A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on the executive branch of the government, university or company. The name comes from the Latin term ''vice'' meaning "in place of" and typically serves as '' pro tempore'' (Latin: ’for the time being’) to the president. In some countries, the vice president is called the ''deputy president''. In everyday speech, the abbreviation ''VP'' is used. In government In government, a vice president is a person whose primary responsibility is to act in place of the president on the event of the president's death, resignation or incapacity. Vice presidents are either elected jointly with the president as their running mate, or more rarely, appointed independently after the president's election. Most governments with vice presidents have one perso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Counsel
A general counsel, also known as chief counsel or chief legal officer (CLO), is the chief in-house lawyer for a company or a governmental department. In a company, the person holding the position typically reports directly to the CEO, and their duties involve overseeing and identifying the legal issues in all departments and their interrelation, including engineering, design, marketing, sales, distribution, credit, finance, human resources and production, as well as corporate governance and business policy. This would naturally require in most cases reporting directly to the owner or CEO overseeing the very business on which the CLO is expected to be familiar with and advise on the most confidential level. This requires the CLO/general counsel to work closely with each of the other officers, and their departments, to appropriately be aware and advise.The 2011 In-House Counsel Compensation Survey, Question 1Profiles of In-House Counsel 200Who Does Your Counsel Report To? (2001) (T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital One
Capital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and savings accounts, headquartered in McLean, Virginia with operations primarily in the United States. It is on the list of largest banks in the United States and has developed a reputation for being a technology-focused bank. The bank has 755 branches including 30 café style locations and 2,000 ATMs. It is ranked 99th on the Fortune 500, 9th on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For list, and conducts business in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The company helped pioneer the mass marketing of credit cards in the 1990s. In 2016, it was the 5th largest credit card issuer by purchase volume, after American Express, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup. With a market share of 5%, Capital One is also the second largest auto finance company in the United States, following Ally Financial. The company's three divisions are credit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venture Capital Financing
Venture capital financing is a type of funding by venture capital. It is private equity capital that can be provided at various stages or funding rounds. Common funding rounds include early-stage seed funding in high-potential, growth companies (startup companies) and growth funding (also referred to as series A). Funding is provided in the interest of generating a return on investment or ROI through an eventual exit through a share sale to an investment body, another trading company or to the general public via an Initial public offering (IPO). Venture Capital can be made in four methods: 1) Equity Financing; 2) Conditional Loan; 3) Income Note; and 4) Participating Debenture. Overview Starting a new venture or launching a new product in the market requires funding. There are several categories of financing possibilities depending on the scope of a venture. Smaller ventures sometimes rely on friends and family funding, loans, or crowd funding. For more ambitious projects, some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
