UP.Labs-Porsche’s newest startup wants to be the Plaid of automotive retail

As serial entrepreneur Joel Milne founded, scaled, and then successfully sold mobile auto repair service startup RepairSmith to AutoNation, he was plagued by a persistent problem. The automotive retail industry has a communication problem. And it’s an expensive one. Thousands of dealerships and mechanic shops — each one with an array of software systems — lack a common language to make communication with manufacturers and other businesses easier. “We had this problem of, ‘how do you work with dealerships and shops and talk to them as you’re running around repairing cars and trying to refer them business or get parts from them?’” he said. “And it’s very fragmented, very difficult, very costly to build all these custom integrations with the different stores.” For instance, the average dealership relies on more than 40 different software systems, ranging from dealer management systems and customer relationship management tools to digital retailing, service, inventory, and payment proce ... Read full article.