SAN FRANCISCO -

AutoFi, an online point-of-sale financing solution meant to leverage potential buyers’ interest when they’re on the dealership website, recently announced that it raised $17 million in new financing and is live in the market.  Crosslink Capital led the investment and was joined by Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Bruce Toll, founder of Toll Brothers, and other early stage investors.

Executives indicated the new round of financing will be used to scale the company’s online point of sale financing solution at participating dealers.

“We believe there is a significant shift happening in consumer behavior as it relates to buying cars,” AutoFi chief executive officer and co-founder Kevin Singerman said. “More and more consumers want to not only start, but also complete their car-buying journey online. We’re building a financial technology company that will provide dealers and online car marketplaces with a point-of-sale solution to serve this new online channel.”

Singerman explained AutoFi is “re-imagining” the auto finance experience with a simple, transparent way to find affordable financing online at the point of sale when purchasing a vehicle online. AutoFi can let buyers pay for their new vehicle across multiple months via clear, straightforward interest loans at “fair” rates.

Focused on helping both consumers and auto dealers bring transparency to a traditionally opaque and cumbersome process, AutoFi’s first product allows online shoppers to finance and pay for vehicle purchases entirely online. Once the consumer selects a vehicle, the AutoFi process begins: They apply for financing, select the payment and term of that makes sense for them, choose their protection products and finally e-sign the finance contracts.

AutoFi’s financing cost is designed to remove many of the consumer pain points associated with the buying process. The product simply integrates into a dealer’s Web presence, turning online leads into actual online customers.

“When I read that total U.S. auto lending reached a trillion dollars in the second quarter of 2015 — and discovered the auto industry has yet to use the Internet as a point of sale — I knew there was a substantial opportunity for AutoFi to give consumers the ability to purchase and finance a vehicle entirely online,” said president and co-founder Jonathan Palan.

“We want to be very mindful of a car dealer’s core ‘rooftop business,' so we built AutoFi’s platform as a perfect complement to the in-store operation,” Palan continued. “We give dealers the solution to accelerate conversion of online customers and to do so at higher margins to the dealers.

“AutoFi’s platform allows dealers to run a more efficient business, and importantly gives consumers the transparency they expect in one of the most important purchases of their lives,” he went on to say.

More details can be found at www.autofi.com.