Beepi was a Mountain View, California company offering an online peer-to-peer marketplace for buying, selling and leasing used cars, where transactions could be carried out entirely with a smart phone or a PC. It was launched in April 2014.
In December 2016, after a failed effort to raise further funds, Beepi closed operations outside California, and sought to sell itself to competitors, and then to merge with another company. When those efforts failed, in February 2017 the company closed down and sold off in parts to satisfy creditors.
Video Beepi
Services
Beepi was a peer-to-peer marketplace. Cars underwent an inspection and were listed on Beepi's website for a fixed sales price, with Beepi taking up to a 9% commission and buying unsold cars after 30 days. While buyers did not personally inspect or test drive the car before purchase, they had a 10-day return window after delivery and a warranty. Buyers had the option to pay Beepi in bitcoin, direct debit, financing or credit cards.
In 2016 the company announced it would begin providing car leasing underwritten by Ally financial.
Maps Beepi
History
Beepi was co-founded by CEO Ale Resnik and COO Owen Savir in April, 2014; the service was initially available only in the San Francisco area. Resnik said that he was inspired to create Beepi after a negative experience with a used car that he purchased while a student at MIT.
Beepi raised a $5 million Series A in April 2014, led by Jeff Brody of Redpoint Ventures and including angel investors from the tech industry. The company announced a Series B investment of $60 million in October, 2014 at a valuation of $200M, and estimated that its annual revenue would be $15M. By that time it had expanded to Los Angeles and San Diego.
In December 2014 it raised an additional $12.7 million from three investors, mostly to clean up its capitalization table by buying out early investors who had invested relatively small amounts.
In April 2015 the company opened an office in Phoenix, the first city outside of California in which it had offices. As of that time, people could use Beepi in 200 cities, but delivery was free only in California and Arizona.
In May Resnik told the Wall Street Journal that he expected to raise a more than $300 million "monster round" of financing at a valuation over $2 billion. In October 2016 Beepi raised $70M, led by China's largest domestic automobile maker, SAIC Motor; Resnick attributed the shortfall from his $300M projection to turmoil in the fundraising markets. The round brought the total raised by Beepi to $150M. In the fall of 2016, Beepi was selling only 153 cars each month in California, where the largest used-car seller sold an average of 8,500 cars each month.
In December 2015 Ally Financial and Beepi announced a partnership in which Ally would offer financing for buyers in the Beepi marketplace.
As of February 2016 Beepi's advisory board included Larry Summers and Jim Messina.
In December 2016, after a Chinese investor pulled out of a proposed investment, Beepi shut down operations outside of California, offered to sell itself to its competitor, Shift, laid off 180 staff, and was in the process of merging with Fair.com, a new company. As of February 2017 the merger with Fair.com had fallen through and the company was starting to sell assets in the process of closing down. It went through a process called Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors in which it assigned its property to a company called Sherwood Partners, which in turn sold the assets in order to repay Beepi's creditors.
Competitors
As of August 2015, Beepi's competitors included Carvana, Shift, and Vroom.com.
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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