Serial entrepreneur Bernie Brenner quietly launched a new Austin startup called Rollick this year to bring the online buying experience to RVs, boats and powersports purchases.
On Wednesday, Rollick burst out of stealth mode, announcing a $5.6 million seed funding round, led by Austin-based Silverton Partners. Autotech Ventures, Troy Capital Partners, Capital Factory and hometown hero Brett Hurt also participated.
The startup hopes to provide a more transparent buying experience to the marine, outdoors and powersports industries by creating a large Affinity network of trusted buyers and retailers.
“Today's consumers expect a digital buying experience and motorcycle, powersports, RV and boat dealers want to provide a more personalized, and open purchase process,” said Brenner, in a statement. “These products are about fun and buying them should be as enjoyable as using them.”
Rollick will begin serving Texas pilot markets through the end of 2017 and has plans to roll out nationally in early 2018. The funding will be used to hire sales and support employees in Austin and prep for its national launch.
Brenner, a co-founder of automotive pricing marketplace TrueCar (which went public in 2014), curated an impressive executive team to lead beside him. Joining Brenner, who serves as CEO, is Amit Maheshwari as Rollick’s president and Mike Timmons as COO. Maheshwari previously held a senior vice president role at Cox Automotive, and Timmons worked alongside Brenner at TrueCar as EVP of dealer sales operations.
“Bernie and his team have a tremendous amount of experience in auto retail innovation and we see that applying to these new categories," said Morgan Flager, general partner at Silverton Partners, in a statement.
As part of the funding, Flager will sign on as a Rollick board member, and Alexei Andreev, managing director of AutoTech Ventures, will join the board as an observer.
