Yelp just spent $80M on a site for car repair estimates

Date:

Share post:


Yelp, which made a name for itself giving restaurant recs, just bought an auto services website.

In the company’s earnings report on Thursday, Yelp revealed that it agreed to buy RepairPal, a site for car repair estimates, for $80 million in cash. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of the year, subject to customary closing conditions.

“We believe RepairPal will accelerate our broader services efforts by expanding our offerings in the multi-billion dollar U.S. auto services advertising vertical,” Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.

While it might not seem like an obvious marriage, RepairPal fits into Yelp’s ambition to become a major home services funnel.

In recent years, Yelp has added functionality beyond restaurant and business search tools, like an AI-powered feature that suggests plumbers, repairmen, and other home service providers to users potentially in need of them. Yelp has also introduced programs like Yelp Guaranteed, which offers up to $2,500 of coverage for qualifying projects in case of problems.

Yelp makes money through fees it receives from service providers for certain leads — and through ads. In the company’s most recent fiscal quarter (Q3 2024), advertising revenue from services businesses increased 11% year-over-year to a record $228 million, with revenue growth of around 15% in the home services category alone.

In its shareholder letter, Yelp says that RepairPal generated approximately $30 million in revenue and was roughly break-even on cash and net income. 

“We believe there are clear synergies between Yelp and RepairPal,” the letter reads. “RepairPal brings deep knowledge of auto repairs and pricing, which we can leverage to improve our offerings for auto services businesses. They also maintain a robust partner network, including CarMax, USAA, and Endurance Vehicle Services. Meanwhile, Yelp has a large consumer audience and expertise in areas like search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and AI, which we believe will provide value to RepairPal going forward.”

The acquisition is a nice exit for San Francisco-based RepairPal, which managed to raise $21.3 million in funding from Cars.com, Tugboat Ventures, and others in the 17 years since the company’s founding. In its press release, Yelp didn’t say whether founders Aaron Tavistock, David Esser, and David Sturtz will be joining Yelp corporate.

A Yelp spokesperson later confirmed to TechCrunch that all RepairPal employees, including the leadership (but not the founders, who no longer head the company), will be joining Yelp.



Source link

Lisa Holden
Lisa Holden
Lisa Holden is a news writer for LinkDaddy News. She writes health, sport, tech, and more. Some of her favorite topics include the latest trends in fitness and wellness, the best ways to use technology to improve your life, and the latest developments in medical research.

Recent posts

Related articles

OneRail’s software helps solve the last-mile delivery problem

Last-mile delivery, the very last step of the delivery process, is a common pain point for companies....

Bill to ban social media use by under-16s arrives in Australia’s parliament

Legislation to ban social media for under 16s has been introduced in the Australian parliament. The country’s...

Lighthouse, an analytics provider for the hospitality sector, lights up with $370M at a $1B valuation

Here is yet one more sign of the travel industry’s noticeable boom: a major growth round for...

DOJ: Google must sell Chrome to end monopoly

The United States Department of Justice argued Wednesday that Google should divest its Chrome browser as part...

WhatsApp will finally let you unsubscribe from business marketing spam

WhatsApp Business has grown to over 200 million monthly users over the past few years. That means there...

OneCell Diagnostics bags $16M to help limit cancer reoccurrence using AI

Cancer, one of the most life-threatening diseases, is projected to affect over 35 million people worldwide in...

India’s Arzooo, once valued at $310M, sells in distressed deal

Arzooo, an Indian startup founded by former Flipkart executives that sought to bring “best of e-commerce” to...

OpenAI accidentally deleted potential evidence in NY Times copyright lawsuit

Lawyers for The New York Times and Daily News, which are suing OpenAI for allegedly scraping their...