Former Tesla CIO founded Tekion raises $200 mn at a valuation of $4 billion

Tekion Founder and CEO Jay Vijayan

Tekion, an automotive software platform backed by Tesla's former Chief Information Officer Jay Vijayan, announced funding of $200 million in growth equity capital from Dragoneer Investment Group.

This sets Tekion’s valuation above $4 billion, the US-headquartered company said in a press release on July 16.

Founded in 2016, Tekion delivers a cloud-native platform serving the entire automotive retail ecosystem, and employs about 3,000 people globally. It has partnerships with over 2,000 automotive retailers and over 250 ecosystem technology partners.

Tekion plans to invest the capital for expanding its product offering for dealer partners and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), accelerate implementation timelines, and deliver customer support.

The funding announcement follows Tekion’s performance in 2023, with annual run rate revenue growth of 97 percent year-on-year. Its revenue was over $100 million by the end of 2023.

Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jay Vijayan has worked in electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, building its information technology systems ground-up.

“We are delighted to partner with Dragoneer, whose team has followed our progress closely for multiple years, believes in our long-term vision, and carries an impressive track record investing in best-in-class vertical SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) businesses,” Vijayan was quoted as saying in the release.

Also read: We are Salesforce but 20 years in the future: Tekion CEO Jay Vijayan

The company has $640 million in funding to date, raising $250 million in the last funding round in October 2021. Tekion's other investors include Index Ventures, Advent International, BMW I Ventures, Hyundai, Airbus Ventures, among others.

Christian Jensen, Partner at Dragoneer, said Tekion has built a market-defining platform with proven scalability in one of the largest and most complex industry verticals. "We see incredible opportunity ahead as automotive customers increasingly seek frictionless, digital-first experiences and automotive retailers seek."