Modal, formerly known as Next Technology Inc., was an American-based company in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, that sold

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

for a dealership's website, allowing car shoppers to purchase new and used cars online. In 2016, the company, then known as Next Technologies, entered the seed accelerator,

Y Combinator Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Str ...

History

Modal was founded in 2015 out of

Khosla Ventures Khosla Ventures is an American venture capital firm founded by Vinod Khosla, focused on early-stage companies in the Internet, computing, mobile, financial services, agriculture, healthcare and clean technology sectors. Some of its most successfu ...

. The idea came because there were very few solutions allowing users to buy new cars online but also allowing auto dealers to sell them. After spending a number of months looking for a car himself after he sold his first business to

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in 2013, the founder realized that the process was incredibly time-consuming and could be streamlined. In an interview with

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...

he stated, ''"it became shockingly clear that ecommerce had not reached new cars."'' When speaking about the competition, they suggested that the vast majority of large car sales websites were effectively online magazines, listing cars that you could purchase in person. Drive Motors logo

After the idea of the company was established, Next Technologies then entered seed accelerator

in 2016. This was following rapid growth in Modal's revenue. It was stated that it took only 10 months for their turnover to rise to $1 million in annual recurring revenue following their official launch. They also attended the AutoVentures Conference in 2016, where Modal was listed as a contestant for the main award and pitched their product as the future of the auto industry. Drive Motors was announced the winner following Modal's presentation. In June 2019, the company rebranded as Modal Commerce. Modal signed up their first enterprise client to date in 2016, with

Asbury Automotive Group Asbury Automotive Group is a company based in Atlanta that operates auto dealerships in various parts of the United States. Founded in 1995, it was ranked No. 360 on the 2022 Fortune 500 list. With 148 dealerships and 198 franchises representi ...

agreeing to test the software at a handful of their dealerships. Later that year, Asbury announced they were extending the

to more of their dealerships. Modal consequently added clients including Honda, Nissan, Porsche, Lithia, Group One, and others.

Mechanics

Dealers are able to implement the software and sell cars directly from the dealership website.

References

External links

* {{official website Companies based in San Francisco Y Combinator companies