May 14, 2014
Wheelings & Dealings: Vehcon Acquires Assets of Car Demander
By Anil Sharma
TMCnet Contributor
Vehcon, Inc., an innovator in the vehicle telematics and mobile data industry, has acquired the assets of Car Demander, a company that connects consumers to the cars they want to buy via an online and mobile platform.
Thanks to Car Demander’s technologies, Vehcon will now be able to augment its current suite of mileage-verification and automotive lifecycle solutions that serve the usage-based insurance (UBI), vehicle sales, automotive data, extended warranty, and car care industries.
“Car Demander’s proprietary technologies create an innovative platform to make the vehicle purchasing process more consumer- and privacy-centric,” said Joe Fuller, co-founder and CTO of Vehcon, in a statement.
Officials with Orlando-based Car Demander said that the company’s technology allows a consumer to input a “demand” for a vehicle that meets their individual criteria, and returns “best offers” on matching vehicles from participating dealers. Car buyers can then decide which dealers they want to respond to, keeping personal information private from all but those dealers. This eliminates spam and other unwanted contact.
Fred Blumer, co-founder and CEO of Vehcon, explained that the goal at Vehcon is to produce software, mobile apps, and smart-data solutions that help the UBI and automotive-related industries provide services to drivers throughout the entire vehicle-ownership lifecycle.
Blumer said that the mission is to accomplish that while protecting consumer privacy. Car Demander’s technology and capabilities will add to the company’s growing suite of innovative driver services.
He said that the Car Demander solution integrates seamlessly into near-term offerings that Vehcon will introduce into the market starting in Q4 2014.
Vehcon extracts data from vehicles using smartphone technologies, enabling consumer to lower the total cost of vehicle ownership. The company’s patent-pending solutions capture predictive data, such as odometer readings and area of operation, and provide a platform for communicating offers back to the consumer. Funds for its Phase I market launch will be used for product development, and scaling of the technology platform and team.
Edited by Alisen Downey