Advent leads $150m Series C in Tekion at $1b+ valuation

The funding round was led by private equity investor Advent International, with participation from Index Ventures, Exor (the holding company of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Ferrari), Airbus Ventures and FM Capital, a Tekion statement said. Tekions other key investors from the Automotive industry include General Motors, BMW iVentures and Nissan-Renault- Mitsubishi Alliance Ventures.

Tekion, a cloud technology company and provider of SaaS retail operating platform, Automotive Retail Cloud (ARC), on Wednesday announced its Series C financing round of USD 150 million at over a USD one billion valuation. The funding round was led by private equity investor Advent International, with participation from Index Ventures, Exor (the holding company of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Ferrari), Airbus Ventures and FM Capital, a Tekion statement said.

Tekions other key investors from the Automotive industry include General Motors, BMW iVentures and Nissan-Renault- Mitsubishi Alliance Ventures. "We are fortunate and proud to be supported by great investors from the worlds top OEM brands, top dealers in the country, venture and private equity firms.

We consider this as true validation of the value we are bringing to the industry", said CEO of US-based Tekion, Jay Vijayan, who is from Chennai. Bengaluru is APAC headquarters of Tekion with a centre in Chennai, the statement said, adding, majority of the R&D work is done in India offices.

"Indian engineers/innovators are responsible for developing all the products, including ARC's Zero-Contact Digital Sales & Services module, which was launched at the right time (helped dealers sell cars remotely, as buyers were not keen on visiting dealerships because of Covid-19)", the company added. At present, the focus is on the North American market with global expansion plans to roll out in 2021 to explore Europe and Asia, it was stated.