The Carnovo team with the founding team on top of the car starting from the left: Gerard Olivé (Executive chairman), Santiago Vernetta (COO), Miguel Vicente (Co-chairman) and Ferran Jover (CEO).
Carnovo is a Barcelona based start-up that is transforming the automotive purchase process by making it fast, transparent and convenient for both, car dealers and buyers. Our mission is simple, to put the car buying process upside down by placing customers in the center making them save time and money while offering them the best buying experience. Car dealers that partner with Carnovo sell more cars than they could in the showroom alone while reducing cost inefficiencies and increasing stock turnover. This means they can make great offers to Carnovo buyers! We talk with him about being a South Summit finalist and the entrepeneur panorama.
1. What does South Summit mean for you? What do you expect from this event?
For us participating at the South Summit means being amongst the most innovative startups in Southern Europe and the fact of being selected to compete with them makes us feel really proud. On top of exposure, we expect to meet alike companies innovating in the automotive industry so we can explore synergies together as well as meeting potential investors for our next funding round.
2. Why did you decide to participate in the competition?
We applied to participate again at this years’ edition because last year we weren’t even a one year old company having very little metrics to show and we think that this was one of the main reasons why we didn’t make it to the grand finale. This year we’re already a startup in consolidation process in Spain while expanding to other European markets so we hope to make it further.
3. Why did you decide to start your business and how did you come up with the idea?
It all started when we changed office and one of our partners needed a new car to come to the new office. At this point we saw that process to buy a new car online had room for improvement so we decided to do something about it.
4. Why your company is useful for the user?
Carnovo creates value for both, users in the car buying process and dealers wanting to sell online. For users we allow them to compare new car deals in an easy, transparent and convenient way saving them time and money. For dealers, we represent a more efficient new sales channel that brings them new customers as highly qualified leads, we offer them a disruptive CPA (pay per sale) pricing model instead of the traditional CPL (pay per lead) systems while they build their online reputation linked to users’ car buying process helping them sell more cars.
5. How did you feel when you knew you were finalist?
Really excited, we are always happy to participate in startup events but specially at South Summit since it’s one of the referents in Europe and is for us a honor to be part of the top 100.
6. What do you think it will happen in the future of startups?
In my opinion deep tech will become highly relevant in the upcoming years since the startup scene is getting more and more technologically sophisticated and competitive, so innovating without a high technological component will become harder. Also because the gap between software and hardware is getting smaller so in my opinion those being able to combine both while connecting the dots in terms of deep tech will be able to create revolutionary solutions that will redefine markets and industry processes.
7. What advice would you give to those who want to participate in South Summit?
To be passionate about what you do and to get surrounded with the best possible team, this makes the difference and will bring success to your projects. Once you manage to get into the top 100 finalists, prepare the event in advance to get the most out of it!
8. What does being an entrepreneur mean for you?
Having fun while creating value.
9. What´s your dream in life?
Being able to travel the world while working remotely from a boat! In the internet industry working remotely is becoming very common and this should cme at some point. :-)
