CoPilot raises $10 million

CoPilot, “the assisted commerce leader for high-value purchases,” is announcing a $10 million funding round and the launch of its mobile app designed to assist shoppers as they navigate big ticket purchases, starting with the $1.2 trillion US car market. The round was led by Next Coast Ventures, with participation from Max Levchin’s SciFi Ventures and Arthur Patterson, cofounder of Accel Partners, along with existing investors, including Chicago Ventures, who led the company’s seed round. The investment brings the company’s total outside funding to $17 million.

Founded in 2018, the Chicago-based startup brings a “unique, assisted commerce approach” to the market with a mobile application that guides consumers through all four stages of a high-consideration purchase journey: discovery, search, purchase and ownership. The company has already seen “high demand” as it moves from private beta to general availability, hitting $500 million in Gross Merchandise Value run rate during private beta.

The CoPilot app is built on a “deep tech data platform” that contains “DNA-level” data on 83% of the active for-sale inventory in the US. Using more than 600 million proprietary analytical pricing models, the data platform checks the inventory of virtually every US dealer daily and recommends the best buys fitting a consumer’s needs. CoPilot also offers human copilots who, together with the mobile app, provide “insider insights” that empower consumers to buy the best possible car at the best price available in their area.

To maintain its credibility as a trusted partner, the startup has rejected the typical business model of selling leads, advertising or the like to car dealers. Instead, it will help members save money on products like auto insurance.

“The purchase journey for high-value items, such as cars or homes, is complicated and often opaque. Consumers are forced to quickly become an expert in the topic in order to fully utilize existing online tools. At the same time, many of these tools only offer information that sellers wish to provide. We started CoPilot to introduce transparency to the high-value purchase process and provide an expert partner and advisor to consumers for the entire lifecycle of ownership.” – Pat Ryan, CEO and founder, CoPilot.

“Assisted commerce is the future of high-consideration purchases. We believe that CoPilot will be the leader in empowering consumers to get the most for their money. We are excited to see CoPilot start with a solution that empowers consumers in the highest stress purchase of all: car buying. The fact that CoPilot has already achieved over $500 million in GMV demonstrates the enormous consumer need being filled and the massive potential for the company.” – Tom Ball, co-founder and managing partner at Austin’s Next Coast Ventures.

Bottom Line: starting at the friend zone and hoping to get to a committed (paid) relationship. That is the way of the geek.