Doug DeMuro’s Cars & Bids Platform Scores Major $37 Million Investment
Watch out, Bring a Trailer.
YouTuber Doug DeMuro has achieved great success with his automotive auction business Cars & Bids. Now, that business is set to take off further with the influx of $37 million in investment from The Chernin Group.
DeMuro is most well-known for his widely-popular YouTube channel, which features light-hearted and informative reviews of a wide variety of cars. He was then able to parlay this success into Cars & Bids, an auction platform for "cool modern cars, trucks & SUVs," which he co-founded with Blake Machado. Now, DeMuro will combine Cars & Bids and his YouTube channel into a single business, with The Chernin Group taking a majority stake for $37 million in investment.
When it comes to enthusiast cars, Bring a Trailer has long stood as the auction site of record. Its listings regularly make headlines in the auto media, and its auction results have become a bellwether for enthusiast car prices, particularly for 80s and 90s classics.
Cars & Bids has since risen as a serious contender in its own right, with its focus dedicated to modern classics from the 1980s and up. Since launching in May 2020, it's played host to over 10,000 auctions and over $230 million worth of sales. Those are big figures, though the site has a long way to go to topple Bring a Trailer, which recorded over $1 billion in sales in 2022 alone.
Like Bring a Trailer, Cars & Bids has become a go-to site to auction rare and special vehicles. It's played host to auctions for everything from a rare civilian-spec Toyota MegaCruiser to a wacky 2003 Smart Crossblade. It's also become a popular marketplace for selling EVs, particularly from Rivian and Tesla, as well as other vehicles in high demand like the Ford Bronco and Porsche 911. The site doesn't charge any listing fees, instead collecting a percentage of the total sale value, capped at $4,500. The company's auction team reviews submitted vehicles to ensure they're a good fit for the platform.
As for the investors, if you haven't heard of The Chernin Group, you're not alone. The group's ethos is to "invest in companies that define culture," typically through investments in the media, entertainment, and sports sectors. The company has worked with a wide variety of enthusiast brands, including names like Food52 and Epic Gardening.
Overall, the investment looks set to propel Cars & Bids to new heights as it grows further in the enthusiast auction space. As the company takes on Bring a Trailer, as well as other new rivals like Collecting Cars, it's certainly going to help to have plenty of money in the bank to support its further rise.
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