Car app company Fair closed a $50 million debt facility with Silicon Valley Bank. The funds will be used to buy cars for the company’s users, the latest in a series of many such transactions Fair is making with institutional lenders as it scales globally.
Fair is an app that puts the entire end-to-end process of getting a car on a customer’s phone. Users scan their license to shop pre-owned cars with all-in monthly payments they can afford, sign for the one they want with their finger, pick up their keys and drive it for as long as they want – with no long-term commitment or physical paperwork.
The SVB debt facility will complement credit lines Fair has already accessed with Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs and follows Fair’s closing of a SoftBank-led $385 million Series B funding round in December, which also included investments from Exponential Ventures, Munich Re Venture’s ERGO Fund, G Squared, and CreditEase.
Including that last transaction, Fair has now raised nearly $500 million in equity in the past year, which it is leveraging to access a vastly larger sum of debt capital to buy cars on behalf of its customers.
“SVB is providing an innovative and flexible debt facility that supports our specific business model,” said Fair Founder and CEO Scott Painter. “Their forward-thinking approach is enabling companies like Fair to achieve scalable growth in the innovation economy and is a true blueprint for how tech companies should be able to access debt.”
“SVB is eager to support companies offering disruptive solutions in industries undergoing transformative change,” said Zhengyuan Lu, managing director and head of SVB’s Warehouse Financing Group. “Fair is helping create the new mobility economy and Car-as-a-Service model, and we are thrilled to help propel its growth globally.”
Since launching in August 2017, Fair has provided cars for more than 20,000 users through its 3,000 dealer partners in 26 markets across the United States. It also has a nearly year-old partnership with Uber that allows potential rideshare drivers to access Fair right in the Uber app. They can pick the car they want, pay for it on a weekly basis as they use it for Uber rides and walk away whenever they want.
