VINN is one of the largest automotive marketplaces in Canada. With over 120 dealership partners nationwide and more than 100,000 vehicles to choose from. Their mission is to streamline the car buying process, getting customers into the vehicle they want sooner. VINN’s vehicle experts will walk customers through every step of the car-buying journey. They provide advice on vehicles, dealerships, financing, trade-in options, and more; all at no cost to the customer. 

VINN drew the attention of Turner Novak, the founder of Twitter gag site Banana Capital, who has created a reputation for himself by combining industry analyses with creative memes on social media. Banana Capital has made its largest investment to date in VINN. VINN announced a $3.2 million seed round led by Novak's micro-VC colleague Andrew Wilkinson. CEO and Co-founder Caleb Bernabe's tenacity and lack of a prominent competitor in Canada prompted the VC to invest in Vinn.

The company's clever internet-focused strategy struck Novak. Novak tells Forbes, “They figured out a way to become capital-efficient, almost like a dealer’s sales rep,” Novak tells Forbes. “They don’t own any inventory, so they’re able to essentially bid for keywords online that just aren’t as competitive, because they don’t have to sell and move immediately. They’re just trying to find people who are interested in the car.”

VINN aims to reach seven figures in revenue by 2021, and with the month-over-month growth, the company is experiencing the goal is within reach. VINN's technology also searches the web for listings from dealerships who have yet to join the platform, but who will likely do so once they see how successful the marketplace has been in driving customers to their shops.

“It’s a new style of customer. It’s much more of a passive sale for the dealership,” Bernabe says.

Bernabe and his founding team, Chet Flanagan (COO) and Tom Avant (CTO) aim to use their new funding to develop a peer-to-peer automobile selling alternative that will compete with social and grassroots operations like Facebook and Craigslist. The company also has plans to expand within Canada and, eventually, into the United States.

VINN: https://www.vinnauto.com/ca