Former Tesla CIO raises $150 million for his SaaS automotive retail startup, enters the unicorn club

• Jay Vijayan’s startup Tekion has raised $150 million in a Series C round funding at a valuation of over a billion dollars.
• At Tesla, Vijayan had built the company’s software for sales and after a four-year stint, he went on to form Tekion in 2016.
• Tekion takes on Vijayan’s work at Tesla and offers a cloud platform for dealers to carry out sales seamlessly.

Former Tesla CIO Jay Vijayan’s startup Tekion has raised $150 million in a Series C round funding at a valuation of over a billion dollars. Tekion is an automotive retail cloud startup bringing on board the entire car retailing journey on an application.

The latest funding comes from global private equity investor Advent and also saw participation from Index Ventures, Exor (the holding company of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Ferrari), Airbus Ventures and FM Capital. The four-year old startup also counts General Motors, BMW iVentures and Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Alliance Ventures as its investors.

Prior to the latest round, the startup had already raised $65 million in funding.

At Tesla, Vijayan had built the company’s software for sales, and after a four-year stint, he went on to form Tekion in 2016. Tekion takes on Vijayan’s work at Tesla and offers a cloud platform for dealers to carry out sales seamlessly.

The startup has now also brought on board Jon McNeill, Advent Advisory Partner, former Chief Operating Officer of Lyft Inc. and former President of Global Sales, Marketing, Delivery and Service at Tesla.

“Today’s consumers receive outstanding personalized retail experiences from companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Disney. Why shouldn’t they expect the same in their vehicle acquisition and service needs? We believe Tekion will be the trailblazer for enabling the modernization of the entire consumer journey and providing the best experiences and operational efficiencies, period. It’s time to even the playing field for the automotive retail industry,” said Jay Vijayan, CEO of Tekion.

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