Edmunds.com Raises An Initial Round of $10 Million in Financing; Primary Investors Include The General Electric Pension Trust and Rare Medium Group, Inc.
14 October 1999
Edmunds.com Raises An Initial Round of $10 Million in Financing; Primary Investors Include The General Electric Pension Trust and Rare Medium Group, Inc.
LOS ANGELES--Oct. 14, 1999--Edmunds.com (http://www.edmunds.com), the Web's leading third party automotive resource, today announced it has secured an initial round of $10 million in financing from strategic and financial investors.Primary investors in this round include General Electric Pension Trust and Rare Ventures, the venture capital unit of Rare Medium Group, Inc. . The funding will be used to further expand Edmunds.com's infrastructure and marketing efforts.
"As the online automotive industry grows and more consumers demand an unbiased perspective on new and used cars and trucks, we must grow to meet their needs," said Peter Steinlauf, president and CEO, Edmunds.com. "We'll leverage this round of financing to bolster our internal resources so that a wider array of automotive buyers, sellers and owners will find our information empowering and our team of experts responsive."
The Edmunds.com site is powered by the same company that has published the Edmund's Price and Review guides since 1966. That 33-year history has given Edmunds.com a highly respected reputation as an objective source for automotive information -- a reputation that extended to the Internet in 1994. The company was also the first site on the Internet to provide automobile pricing information free of charge to Web users.
Edmunds.com has continued to lead the way in the third party automotive category and now generates an average of 1.3 million unique visitors a month who spend an average of 16 minutes per visit.
Edmunds.com facilitates the car-buying process online through its roster of strategic partners who provide a full complement of automotive products and services, including vehicle purchasing, financing and leasing, insurance, parts/accessories and used vehicle history reports.
Its Web presence also serves as an effective filter, qualifier and provider of sales leads: people who go to a car-buying site (manufacturer or dealer) via Edmunds.com have proven to be more than twice as likely to buy than a consumer who goes to the same car-selling site directly.
About Edmunds.com
Headquartered in Los Angeles, Edmunds.com is the Internet's pioneer and leader in providing free, third party automotive information. Edmunds.com empowers, educates and engages visitors by respecting them and providing them with straightforward, truthful information on key aspects of buying, selling and owning a vehicle.
Users are provided automobile pricing data, extensive automobile reviews, consumer information, safety updates, incentive and rebate news, expert analysis of developments in the automotive world and the Town Hall, an interactive community of more than 250,000 participants. Edmunds.com has been honored as one of Yahoo! Internet Life's 50 Most Incredibly Useful Sites and among Entrepreneur Magazine's Top 100 Web Sites for Entrepreneurs.