California-based based Tekion Corp., which operates a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for the automative sector, said it had raised $250 million in its Series D round, at a valuation of over $3.5 billion.
Tekion, which was founded in 2016 by Jay Vijayan, ex-chief information officer of Tesla, has raised capital in this round from Alkeon Capital and Durable Capital. Hyundai Motor Company and other dealer groups across the United States have also joined the cap table. Advent International who led Tekion’s Series C and Index Ventures who led Series A also reinvested in this round, Tekion said in a media statement.
The company’s valuation has tripled in less than a year. It last raised capital in November 2020, when Advent International led a $150 million round at over $1 billion valuation.
“Tekion is turbo-charging the automotive industry by offering an end-to-end, next-generation technology software platform for both car dealers and automotive manufacturers,"
Deepak Ravichandran, General Partner at Alkeon Capital.
“By building a single, unified cloud platform for manufacturers and dealers, Tekion is also unlocking multiple new markets heretofore unavailable to legacy incumbents limited by archaic technology architecture,” Ravichandran added.
Tekion is headquartered in Pleasanton, California, though its Asia Pacific headquarter is based in Bengaluru.
It employs people across US, India, and Canada. In India, the company employs 900 across Bengaluru and Chennai.
The company plans to use the proceeds to expand the roll out of its flagship product Automative Retail Cloud (ARC) globally.
It will also expand further in India, including by setting up a new office and hiring engineering talent, the company said.
“Tekion’s cloud-native ARC solution will drive performance and agility into dealer operations and customer experience. Our shared efforts will provide even better data quality, integrity and digital experiences for our dealers and their customers,” said Manish Mehrotra, Executive Director, Digital Business Planning and Connected Operations of Hyundai Motor North America.
