This startup pits dealerships against each other to bid on your used car

Bidbus, which lets dealerships bid on used cars, has raised $15 million in a Series A round that was led by early-stage mobility fund Ibex Investors.

Or, you could hope for more by going to a dealership, but the dealer’s offer can vary wildly depending on what they’re looking for, never mind the extra time and effort on your part. A Los Angeles-based startup called Bidbus has spent the last few years trying to combine the best of those options, making it so sellers don’t need to leave their couch to get dealership-level offers. The company has created a digital marketplace where multiple dealers can bid on a car, a process that results in an average offer that’s about $2,000 to $3,000 higher than what Carvana offers, according to Bidbus’ founders. Now, looking to scale beyond its initial markets of California and Texas, the startup has raised a $15 million Series A funding round led by early-stage mobility fund Ibex Investors. The round also saw participation from Mucker Capital, FJ Labs, Motley Fool Ventures, Data Point Capital, Walter Ventures, and the Car Dealership Guy’s Yossi Levi. Bidbus’ co-founder and CEO Duke Yan told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview that he came up with the idea after years spent buying and selling cars on his own. When he tried to help his mom get rid of her car, the offers from dealers were insultingly low, so he put them in a group chat. To his surprise, buyers started bidding up the price. “Used-car affordability is not a financing problem. It’s a market efficiency problem. Consumers lack real price discovery for trade-ins, dealers struggle to source quality inventory, and much of the best supply is still trapped in people’s driveways,” Yan told TechCrunch. It’s a clever combination. Dealerships already buy cars at auctions to fill inventory, so the startup is not pitching a foreign idea. Yan said Bidbus helps dealers by bringing them the most highly-valued used cars, which tend to come from private sellers. The startup takes advantage of the spread between what online sellers are willing to pay and the typically higher dealer payout: a difference that can stretch to thousands of dollars.