Numa Secures $32 Million to Revolutionize Car Dealerships with AI Tools

Numa raises $32M to develop AI tools for car dealerships - SiliconANGLE

Numa, a provider of artificial intelligence software for car dealerships, today announced that it has closed a $32 million Series B investment. The funding round was jointly led by Touring Capital and Mitsui Group, a Tokyo-based conglomerate. The latter company generates part of its revenue from producing auto parts and hosting truck auctions. The round also saw the participation of several returning backers including Google LLC's Gradient Ventures startup fund. Numa, officially NumberAI Inc., provides a cloud platform that promises to make car dealerships' day-to-day operations more efficient. The centerpiece of the software is a voice assistant that can field sales calls and texts from customers. After collecting key details about an inquiry, the AI routes it to the dealership employee best suited to provide an answer. Numa says that its platform automates several related tasks as well. It can analyze a sales inquiry to extract customer intent data for use in marketing efforts. Additionally, the platform manages the process of scheduling dealership appointments to leave employees more time for other tasks. While a car is being repaired, a dealership's mechanics can have Numo send the customer status updates about the maintenance process. Sales representatives, in turn, use the software to help them negotiate trade-ins. Those are transactions in which a dealership buys a customer's previous vehicle for credits that can be applied towards a new vehicle purchase. Preventing leads from choosing a competing leadership is another task that Numa promises to ease. The platform can send reminders to potential customers who express interest in making a purchase but don't follow up. Dealerships keep sales data and other business information in specialized applications called DMS systems. According to Numa, its platform includes integrations that can automatically sync data collected about sales opportunities to a company's DMS system. This saves time and avoids the errors that often emerge during manual data entry. "We are building the AI-native dealership -- re-architecting how dealerships run at their core," said Numa co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Tasso Roumeliotis. According to TechCrunch, Numa's installed base includes about 600 car dealerships in the U.S. and Canada. The software maker claims to have grown its revenue by more than 2,200% over the past three years thanks to strong demand. Numa is not yet profitable but is reportedly "just about cash-flow break-even." To maintain its growth, the company plans to increase the pace at which it releases new features. Numa will hire more AI engineers using its newly raised funding to support the development push.

Numa Obtains $32 Million to Drive AI-Powered Auto Dealer Platform | PYMNTS.com

Numa, an artificial intelligence (AI) platform for auto dealerships, announced it has secured $32 million in a Series B funding round. Numa will use the funding to expand its AI engineering team, accelerate product development and continue its mission to power AI-native dealerships, the company said in a Tuesday (Oct. 1) news release. "We are building the AI-native dealership -- re-architecting how dealerships run at their core," said Tasso Roumeliotis, CEO and co-founder at Numa. "Our AI agents not only handle repetitive tasks like booking appointments and giving status updates, but also more complex ones like rescuing dissatisfied customers and unlocking trade-ins. Numa activates a total transformation for every dealership, making their operations and communications smarter, faster, and more customer-centric." The round was led by Touring Capital, a growth-stage firm focused on AI-powered software, and Mitsui & Co., a "global conglomerate generating $1.2 billion in annual profit from automotive and mobility," according to the release. Existing investors Costanoa Ventures, Threshold and Google's AI-focused venture fund, Gradient Ventures, also participated in the round, according to the release. Numa noted that U.S. auto dealership industry is expected to grow 4% through 2028, but continues to be bogged down by outdated systems that slow down workers and frustrate customers. "Numa's AI agents streamline operations and communications, reducing average customer response times from 23 hours to just 13 minutes and increasing repair order dollars per service adviser by over 35%," the company said in the release. This fresh injection of money comes as the forecast looks dim across the broader automotive industry, PYMNTS reported on Tuesday. Most major automakers are due to report quarterly earnings Tuesday, and industry forecasts expect sales to be flat compared to last year. Citing a report from The Wall Street Journal, PYMNTS noted that car companies are potentially on track to close the year with U.S. vehicle sales of about 15.7 million. In contrast, automakers reported sales of at least 17 million vehicles in the five years prior to the pandemic. Sticker shock may be driving consumers away, as new car prices averaged $44,467 in September, nearly $10,000 higher than in 2019.