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February 13 2023
Mark Coakley, Mergermarket
DAS Technology, a venture capital-backed automotive inventory and customer data software company, is looking globally for firms with technology to bridge gaps in the car sales process, said co-founder and CEO Alexi Venneri.
Last month, the Scottsdale, Arizona-based company, formerly Digital Air Strike, rebranded as DAS Technology. She expects it to have USD 50m in revenue in 2023, she said. The company has 162 employees.
DAS recently signed a letter of intent and is conducting due diligence for acquiring a software-as-a-service firm in the data analytics space, she said. It is looking for companies across the world, with Venneri recently travelling to Tel Aviv to meet Israeli tech leaders.
The company would need a Series C fundraising round to cover a price tag higher than USD 10m, she said. It is mainly looking for smaller companies that have good tech but needs help because their people are “wearing too many hats”. She predicts that Digital Air Strike will have a Series C in 2024 or 2025.
It is also looking to acquire companies that would give it access to new distribution systems as well as ones engaged in car-adjacent transportation, such as recreational vehicles, power sports, marine, motorcycles and golf carts, she added.
She noted that buys could also be made to bring talent onboard.
The company has always been profitable, she said. It has not done any fundraising since a sale of about half of its equity to venture capital firms in 2011, she said. The rest is owned by individuals including Venneri.
DAS integrates inventory, pricing, customer input and other data from 189 different sources involving 35 different, sometimes-incompatible customer relations management systems to help car retailers make informed decisions and engage well with buyers and leads, Venneri explained.
In 2022, Digital Air Strike acquired AUTOVATE, an Austin, Texas-based thought leader and conference host for auto sales technology.
It bought LotVantage, which was involved with power sports, in 2021, Bestride.com from Gannett in 2020 and made four other major asset buys before that.
The company is involved in about 42% of all car transactions in the US, she said.
DAS has looked at going public, she said, and will likely do so when either revenue hits USD 100m, as she expects will occur in a couple of years, or a PE firm reaches out with a plan to help the company go public before hitting USD 100m.
Its clients include Club Car (golf carts), Tire Pros, General Motors, Royal Automotive Group in Arizona, Holiday Auto Group in Texas, Bettenhausen Automotive Group in Illinois, Sterling Automotive Group in Louisiana and Lithia Auto Group in Oregon.
Its main geographic market is the US, with some clients in Canada and some clients for its AI chat solutions in about 30 other countries, she said.
