Britain’s used-car market is valued at more than £60bn per annum and yet UK consumers often struggle to get a great deal and a convenient trusted sale when they sell their car. Realising the untapped potential, Motorway – the UK’s first-ever C2B used car marketplace – achieved unicorn status in 2021 with rapidly growing market share. Its growth is doubling year-on-year and the firm reached a Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) in excess of £1.7bn in 2022.
While many other technology firms and scale-ups are downsizing in the current environment, Motorway is continuing to expand, with plans to increase its 450-strong UK-based team to over 600 in 2023. This comes after the company appointed Liz Kistruck as its first Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in July to help take Motorway to the next stage of growth and profitability. Liz joined from fashion technology platform Lyst, where she was CFO. Prior to Lyst, Liz was at Expedia Group for 14 years and held various roles including CFO for Hotels.com, CFO for Expedia for Business, as well as SVP Global Marketing Analytics. In these roles, she led large, multinational teams through significant growth and transformation.
In an industry where over 90% of private car sales are still offline, Motorway enables customers to quickly and easily sell their car for a great price from the comfort of home using only a smartphone. With a network of more than 5,000 professional car dealers using the platform to directly bid on these vehicles, Motorway helps customers sell their car for a great price, in as little as 24 hours – while supporting its car dealer partners to acquire the best used car stock online, representing a win for both sides. Today, over 250,000 people have sold their car the Motorway way.
Motorway’s exponential growth comes as a result of having transformed a traditionally offline industry whereby private used-car sellers and dealers alike were losing out. More recently, the platform announced the acquisition of a leading provider of vehicle provenance checks, Total Car Check. The acquisition further strengthens Motorway’s focus on vehicle data accuracy and transparency for its consumer and car dealer customers, after Total Car Check generated over 42 million UK vehicle checks in 2022 alone and increasing revenue by 30% year on year.
The firm has raised over $250m in venture capital funding, including a $190M Series C from Index Ventures and ICONIQ in 2021.
Tom Leathes, co-founder and CEO of Motorway, comments:
“We’re now listing over 1,000 cars every day on average, and are starting to hit 1,500 cars a day on a regular basis.
“Our growth to date is testament to both the great team we have built and our commitment to providing a better way for car owners to sell and for car dealers to buy. Selling a car has always been hard, but we’re creating a new set of expectations – a great deal with a seamless user experience where everyone in the transaction wins.
“In a highly unpredictable market, our marketplace model means that even in rapidly-changing dynamics, we’re able to secure the best deal reliably for sellers and dealers, and at an ever-increasing scale. Our customer-first approach has paid off – more people than ever before are now coming to Motorway to sell their cars, which means in turn we are able to offer more used car stock to our dealer network, and we are able to continue to grow efficiently.
“We are delighted with the great results last year, but we won’t be resting on our laurels in 2023. Our customers can expect to see even more innovation from us this year, as we deliver even better ways to improve the car-selling and car-buying experience.”
