Upstart (NASDAQ:UPST) stock is soaring higher on Thursday after announcing a deal that has it beefing up its online car-buying platform.
A recent news release from Upstart reveals that the online lending company is acquiring Prodigy Software. This is a leading cloud-based auto retail software company. Financial details of the deal were not revealed. It’s set to close in Q2 2021.
According to Upstart, its goal in acquiring Prodigy Software is to bring the online shopping experience for cars up to speed. The company says that giants in the e-commerce space, including Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Shopify (NYSE:SHOP), have pushed online shopping into the future, but claims the auto e-commerce experience is falling behind.
Upstart’s goal with its acquisition is to work with dealers to improve the state of buying cars online. Prodigy Software says it expects lending technology from Upstart to make this possible with cheaper and more transparent auto loans.
Dave Girouard, co-founder and CEO of Upstart, said this about the news revving UPST stock up today.
“Upstart is on a path to reduce the cost of auto financing, and we can accelerate this opportunity with a modern multi-channel purchase experience. Auto retail is among the largest buy-now-pay-later opportunities, and together with Prodigy, we aim to help dealers create a seamless and inclusive experience worthy of 2021.”
Upstart is looking to tap into a large market with its expanding auto loan business. The company points out that more than $1 trillion in automobiles were purchased in 2019 and the majority of them were financed. However, customers rate buying cars as one of the worst experiences, which means there’s clearly room for improvement. UPST wants to meet that need.
UPST stock is seeing heavy trading today on the news. Nearly 10 million shares have traded this morning. That’s a strong increase over the daily average trading volume of 1.5 million shares for the stock.
UPST stock was up 76.4% as of Thursday afternoon and is up 143% since the start of the year.
Upstart isn’t the only final stock in the news of late.
Financial investors have a large collection of stocks to choose from when investing. That includes JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), and others. Let’s check out what’s been going on with them in the following content from InvestorPlace.com.
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On the date of publication, William White did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.
