Ripcord raises $45M in Series B2 funding to modernize the car buying process and digitize paper records using AI

Car dealerships face increasing challenges with consumer privacy concerns and legacy business processes that rely heavily on inefficient manual, time intensive forms. To further complicate problems, the information from both paper and digital forms typically funnels into multiple disparate and totally disconnected systems, compounding data compliance and processing issues.

Enter Ripcord, the world’s first robotics digitization company that is transforming the $62 billion records management, RPA, MPS, and ECM space through robots that scan, index and categorize paper records, making them searchable in the cloud and integrated into existing business processes while better enabling RPA.

Today, Ripcord announced it has raised additional $45 million in Series B2 funding to drive digital transformation across the automotive industry and modernize the car buying process. The round, which was led by CDK Global, increases the company’s total funding to over $120 million. Other backers in this round include existing investors Kleiner Perkins, GV, Steve Wozniak, Silicon Valley Bank, Lux Capital, Tyche Partners, Icon Ventures, and Baidu.

Founded in 2014 by Alex Fielding, Kevin Hall, and Kim Lembo, Hayward, California-based Ripcord is a robotic digitization company that builds robots to digitize records and make them accessible anywhere, anytime. Ripcord is used by Fortune 100 companies including notable brands such as Coca Cola, BP and Chevron, MUFG Bank, UCLA, and Cantium.

CDK Global is investing in Ripcord to streamline the car buying experience. CDK Global and Ripcord together enable solutions that will improve both the consumer and dealer experience by saving time, reducing errors, and driving down costs throughout the car buying process. For dealerships, Ripcord provides added intelligence that helps them buy, sell, service and finance cars more competitively and with reduced processing costs – ultimately leading to better prices for the consumer and higher profit margins for dealers.

“CDK Global strives to help dealers improve the customer experience in a digital-driven world, and Ripcord’s intelligent approach to digitization supports our vision and benefits both dealerships and consumers tremendously,” said Brian Krzanich, president and CEO, CDK Global.

Ripcord is on a mission to digitize the earth and usher in a green, paperless era with its vision-guided robots and advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. Ripcord digitizes business processes that still rely on paper, and automates and modernizes customer workflows to bring efficiency and cohesion to time-intensive processes and disconnected systems. Most of the recorded knowledge of human history is exiled in paper, and Ripcord leverages its intelligent software to free that information to make it searchable and accessible to everyone. Ripcord provides the highest speed and accuracy in the industry, and creates streamlined and more automated processes that translate to increased profits for businesses, greater time savings for consumers, and reduced costs across the entire digital ecosystem.

“Once you pick a car, all you want to do is drive it off of the lot, but today, there is a mountain of repetitive paperwork and manual data entry blocking the exit,” said Alex Fielding, founder and CEO of Ripcord. “Together with CDK’s expertise in automotive and our unmatched digitization capabilities with intelligent robotics and cutting edge software, we are going to get new car owners on the road more quickly and help dealers perfect compliance and earn greater margins. With this new financing, we’ll continue to expand our offering and transform additional vertical markets across North America and globally.”