ACV Auctions Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 8, 2024

There are 8 speakers on the call.

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the ACV Q1 20 24 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Tim Fox.

Operator

Thank you. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Good afternoon and thank you for joining ACV's conference call to discuss our Q1 2024 financial results. With me on the call today are George Shimon, Chief Executive Officer and Bill Zarrella, Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, please note that today's comments include forward looking statements, including statements regarding future financial guidance. These forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and involve factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. A discussion of the risks and uncertainties related to our business can be found in our SEC filings and in today's press release, both of which can be found on our Investor Relations website.

Speaker 1

During this call, we will discuss both GAAP and non GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non GAAP financial measures is provided in today's earnings materials, which can also be found on our Investor Relations website. And with that, let me turn the call over to George.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Tim. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We are pleased with our Q1 performance, which demonstrated continued strong execution by the ACV team. We delivered another quarter of record revenue, which was at the high end of guidance and grew 22% year over year. We delivered our Q1 of positive adjusted EBITDA since going public, which was also at the high end of guidance.

Speaker 2

Our innovation engine continues to along, further extending our competitive moat and driving operating efficiencies, resulting in an 800 basis point year over year improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin. Along with our continued momentum in dealer wholesale, we are very pleased with the early market adoption of ACV's consumer sourcing solution ClearCut. We kicked off a number of tech investments to support our commercial wholesale strategy. ACV remains focused on driving strong top line growth, continued margin expansion and delivering adjusted EBITDA profitability in 2024. We're confident that executing on this profitable growth strategy will result in creating long term shareholder value.

Speaker 2

With that, let's turn to a brief recap of 1st quarter results on Slide 4. 1st quarter revenue of $146,000,000 was at the high end of guidance and grew 22% year over year. GMV decreased 4% year over year, driven by a 16% decrease in GMV per unit as wholesale prices continued to normalize. We sold 175,000 vehicles in our marketplace, growth of 15% year over year, reflecting strong listings growth and a modest year over year decline in conversion rates. On Slide 5, I will again frame the rest of today's discussion around the 3 pillars of our strategy to maximize long term shareholder value: growth, innovation and scale.

Speaker 2

I'll begin with growth. Turning to Slide 7, I'll share our observations about automotive market trends as context for dealer wholesale volumes. New retail sales were flat year over year to continue to lag 2019 level. However, the inventory picture continues to gradually recover. And along with increasing OEM incentives, we believe new retail sales will improve in the back half of twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2

Used retail environment remains soft with units also flat year over year in Q1 as affordability issues and lack of late model inventory continue to pressure consumer demand. In terms of vehicle sourcing, dealers are retaining a higher than normal percentage of trades for retail inventory, continuing a headwind for dealer wholesale supply. The trade to wholesale mix is expected to normalize over time as new and used inventory recovers from depressed levels, which are currently about 25% below normal. Along with the supply picture continuing to normalize, we saw price depreciation and conversion rates in line with normal seasonal expectations. On balance, we believe that end markets are showing early signs of improvement.

Speaker 2

While the pace for dealer wholesale recovery remains difficult to predict, we do believe the market will post modest growth in the back half of twenty twenty four. Moving to Slide 8. I'd like to provide highlights on our value added services beginning with ACV Transportation. The transportation team delivered another strong quarter with attach rates in the mid-fifty percent range, which is in line with our midterm target model, resulting in 95,000 transport requests sourced from our marketplace. The use of AI optimized pricing, which we introduced in early 2023 expanded significantly and we achieved 94% lean coverage in Q1.

Speaker 2

By leveraging AI, our transfer team drove growth and operating efficiency, resulting in a 300 basis point year over year increase in revenue margin, reaching the high teens and in line with our mid term target model. We also launched off platform transportation services for our dealer partners. While it's still early, we're excited to be delivering additional value for our dealers and another long term growth lever. Turning to Slide 9. Our ACV Capital team also delivered strong results in Q1.

Speaker 2

Attach rates in the low double digits combined with strong ARPU expansion resulted in 40% revenue growth year over year. Given the current challenging used vehicle market, we are focused on balancing the growth and risk of AC Capital, resulting in a 1% credit loss provision in Q1. Moving to the second element of our strategy to drive long term shareholder value innovation. On Slide 11, I'll first recap some of our growth oriented product innovation. Let me begin with the dealer buying experience.

Speaker 2

We continue to add new marketplace features to increase conversion rates, including advanced safe search capabilities and additional transparency of vehicle package information to help inform accurate pricing. The re launch of ACV Max has been promising with Q1 bookings at the highest level since 2021. We are in the early phases of ramping our go to market and expect ACV Max to be an additional long term growth lever. We kicked off tech investments to support our commercial strategy, including integration with AutoIMS, new features required to service consignors and integration efforts across our remarketing centers. Lastly, we're in the pilot phase with our dealer self inspection solution, initially targeted at 2 use cases, private marketplaces and live appraisal.

Speaker 2

Feedback from our dealers has been very positive and we look forward to sharing more details throughout the year as we expand capabilities and scale the pilot. Turning to Slide 12. We are very pleased with the market traction of ClearCar. ACV's consumer sourcing solution that leverages AI and real time market data to deliver highly accurate condition based pricing. Based on dealer feedback, lead generation, conversion rates and margins are significantly higher than competitive consumer sourcing tools.

Speaker 2

This speaks to the power of ClearCar in driving qualified leads and ultimately increasing overall supply for our dealers. We are excited to share feedback directly from one of our dealer partners, Lester Glenn Automotive Group, who is using a broad set of ACV solutions, including ClearCar, ACV Max and our marketplace. We posted a video on our IR website featuring the Lester Glenn team describing the significant value they're driving from the ACV solution. It's a great opportunity here directly from our dealer partners. On Slide 13, we highlight examples of tech investments that extend into our operation, delivering customer success while reducing costs.

Speaker 2

1 of the key drivers is inspection accuracy. Leveraging AI and our structured data is a massive competitive advantage because each vehicle is unique and with its own imperfection. We recently launched version 2.0 of CoPilot and ArcGuard. For CoPilot 2.0, we further leverage our vast data set by adding a visual representation of common high risk vehicle heart failures based on specific year, make and mileage of the vehicle. ARPCAR2.0 continues to leverage some of the industry's best artificial intelligence for vehicle condition diagnostics.

Speaker 2

With the addition of Monk's exterior cosmetic model, we deepen our inspection capabilities, enabling our BCI to produce an even higher level of accuracy. We expect these innovations will drive both BCI efficiency and lower customer assurance costs over the long term. To wrap up on innovation, ACV remains committed to delivering industry leading technology to our dealer partners and to our own operations, driving both growth and scale. And we look forward to sharing more details with you next quarter. With that, let me hand it over to Bill to take you through our financial results and how we're driving growth and scale.

Speaker 3

Thanks, George, and thank you everyone for joining us today. We are very pleased with our Q1 financial performance. Along with delivering accelerated revenue growth, we had meaningful margin expansion and recorded our first positive adjusted EBITDA quarter as a public company demonstrating the strength of our business model. Turning to Slide 15, I'll begin with a recap of our first quarter results. Revenue of $146,000,000 was at the high end of our guidance range and grew 22% year over year.

Speaker 3

Adjusted EBITDA of $4,000,000 was also at the high end of our guidance range and adjusted EBITDA margin improved approximately 800 basis points versus Q1 2023. This demonstrates both the operating leverage in our model and continued strong OpEx management. Non GAAP net income also turned positive in Q1 and was at the midpoint of our guidance range with margin increasing Auction and assurance revenue which was 57% of total revenue increased 21% year over year. This performance reflects 15% year over year unit growth and auction and assurance ARPU of $476 which grew 5% year over year. Note that ARPU increased year over year despite a 16% decline in GMV per unit reflecting our Q3 2023 price increase and we believe we still have pricing headroom going forward.

Speaker 3

Marketplace services revenue, which was 37% of total revenue, grew 28% year over year. Results were driven by strong ACV transport performance and another record revenue quarter for ACV Capital. Our SaaS and Data Services products comprised 5% of total revenue and declined 3% year over year. As George mentioned, we are very pleased with the relaunch of ACV Max with strong Q1 bookings. Note that this is a SaaS based product with ratable revenue.

Speaker 3

So growth will take time to materialize, but we're confident that the upgraded ACV Max suite will drive long term growth. Turning now to Slide 17, I will cover costs in the quarter. Q1 cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue decreased approximately 300 basis points year over year. The improvement was driven by strong auction assurance results and by ACV Transport. As George mentioned, we delivered high teens transport revenue margins, which is in line with our mid term target model.

Speaker 3

We continue to focus on expense discipline as we optimize and scale our business. Non GAAP operating expenses excluding cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue decreased 300 basis points year over year in Q1. Moving to Slide 18, let me frame our investment strategy as we continue driving profitable growth. Our focus on spending discipline and operating efficiency resulted in a material decrease in OpEx growth in 2023 resulting in a significant improvement in adjusted EBITDA year over year. As we mentioned on our Q4 call, OpEx growth is expected to increase in 2024 as we integrate our new remarketing centers and invest in our commercial wholesale platform.

Speaker 3

Even with this incremental investment, we continue to expect adjusted EBITDA margin will increase by approximately 800 basis points this year. Next, I will highlight our strong capital structure on Slide 19. We ended Q1 with $341,000,000 in cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities and $125,000,000 of debt on our revolver. Note that our Q1 cash balance includes $172,000,000 of flow in our auction business. The amount of float on our balance sheet will continue figure on the right, you'll see that we delivered a strong quarter of In the figure on the right, you'll see that we delivered a strong quarter of operating cash flow.

Speaker 3

Note that for Q1, twenty twenty four when excluding the quarterly change in marketplace flow, we generated $5,000,000 of operating cash flow. This is a significant increase year over year reflecting the transition to profitability and strong margin improvements. Now I'll turn to guidance on Slide 20. For the Q2 of 2024, we are expecting revenue in the range of $154,000,000 to $158,000,000 Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $6,000,000 to $8,000,000 consistent with our commitment to achieving profitability each quarter going forward. For the full year 2024, we continue to expect revenue in the range of $610,000,000 to $625,000,000 representing growth of 27% to 30% year over year.

Speaker 3

Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $20,000,000 to $25,000,000 reflecting operating improvements in our core business and integration investments in our remarketing centers. As it relates to guidance, we're assuming that dealer wholesale market grows modestly in the back half of twenty twenty four and conversion rates and wholesale price depreciation follow normal seasonal patterns. Revenue growth is expected to outpace non GAAP OpEx growth excluding cost of revenue and D and A by approximately 10 percentage points. And finally moving to Slide 25, we remain committed to achieving our mid term target model, which is underpinned by sustaining market share gains, penetrating adjacent markets and expanding margins through revenue mix and scale, all of which we've clearly demonstrated in our performance. Our midterm targets are primarily predicated on the dealer wholesale market recovering to historical volumes over time.

Speaker 3

In addition, we are expanding our TAM and consistently taking share, which will drive long term growth. And with that, let me turn it back to George.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Bill. Before we take your questions, I will summarize. We are very pleased with our strong execution in Q1. We are especially proud of our ACV teammates that delivered these results. We continue to gain market share by attracting new dealer and commercial partners to our marketplace, while expanding our addressable market, which positions ACV for attractive growth as market conditions improve.

Speaker 2

We are delivering an exciting product roadmap to further differentiate ACV and drive operating efficiency. We are on track to achieve our near term adjusted EBITDA targets and deliver on our midterm target that we believe will drive significant shareholder value. We are committed to achieving these results while building a world class team to deliver on our goals. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator

Speaker 4

to

Operator

The first question we have is from Bob Labick of CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Hey Bob.

Speaker 6

Good afternoon. Hi, congratulations on a nice quarter.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Bob. Thanks, Bob.

Speaker 6

Lots of great stuff you already told us. I guess my first question, maybe give us a little update on your, I'll call it, the kind of commercial land and reconditioning strategy, if you could. I know we talked about you had the Texas acquisition of a few locations to kind of experiment with this given that the auto IMS you finally got through the auto IMS lawsuit and you can now work with that. So maybe just give us what have you learned so far in this emerging strategy for you as it relates to land reconditioning in the commercial market itself? What are the pros and cons?

Speaker 6

And what are the kind of next steps over the next several, I don't know, quarters or years or whatever your time horizon is there?

Speaker 2

Yes, certainly, Bob. Thank you. So we're making really, really great progress. The initial locations we have are helping us build relationships with commercial consignors. Obviously, we're still in the early days here.

Speaker 2

But step 1 was for us to start to have handful locations around the country, start to get the technology in place, which we've got

Speaker 3

a phased approach here.

Speaker 2

The phased approach allows us to your point get access to AutoIMS, also allows us to begin our journey of leveraging the ACV tools. So our first phase throughout this year, we started doing the ACV condition report and methodologies of leveraging our inspections at these auctions. So that will be happening throughout the year. The broader integration that this could take a long time to summarize, like a broader integration of activities is also going on, as we speak. And we're also starting to get some early wins.

Speaker 2

For example, even since our last call to now, we've had both one rental car company and one bank who where we get repos have given us several 100 units at a new location, and they were previously just working with us at one location. So this idea of build a relationship with a commercial consignor, show them it works, show them that we've got the right model for them. We had some early wins, albeit these are we're still early. These were 100 of cars a month, but even 100 of vehicles a month, so it's to show the story,

Speaker 3

so it's approved that we're going to be

Speaker 2

a great marketplace. So hopefully that's what you're looking for there. That kind of gives like a really quick summary, but we're on path and really nothing has changed from our last call. We're on path of executing on the strategy.

Speaker 6

Great overview. Appreciate it. And then just one more for me, I'll jump back in queue. Obviously, a very strong quarter. One of the things that stood out was the, I guess, operating leverage on your O and T, your Operations and Technology line.

Speaker 6

Can you talk about the drivers there, maybe the efficiency of your VCIs? How much more can you drive there? How do you feel about where the VCIs are currently? I know like years ago, we talked about they were doing 6 a day, the best ones are doing 12 to 15 a day or any other kind of just metrics there and where you are moving in that path of increasing the efficiency of VCIs and obviously you're leveraging that line as we can see it in the results.

Speaker 2

Yes. Certainly. I'll start and then Bill could also chime in. So I would say we're making small incremental changes and enhancements to scheduling our inspectors. And so I'll say small wins quarter over quarter.

Speaker 2

We're happy with some of those small wins to your point. Those incremental changes will all add up. And as you know, in our more mature areas, we're already hitting our midterm target. So we're very pleased there. There are also, to your point, a broader operating efficiencies from our operations team, bringing in automation in some of our back end functions as well beyond actual inspection.

Speaker 2

So look at those results, weren't in one area like inspections. It was actually a broad improvement. Bill, any more you want to share?

Speaker 3

Yes. Hey, Bob. So I would just add a couple of points. So we've talked in the past about continuing to just optimize every aspect of our business, and we're continuing to do that every quarter. Interesting baby set of data for you is if we look at just the organic growth rate of our OpEx in the quarter was low single digits.

Speaker 3

Carves out the M and A impact in terms of OpEx. So we're continuing to manage our OpEx as effectively as we can, while making sure we're also investing properly in the business. So we're starting to see those results in our financials.

Speaker 6

Yes, great stuff. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Thank you.

Operator

The next question we have is from Michael Graham of Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Hi, thank you. I wanted to ask 2 questions. The first is, it looks like auction revenue per unit stepped up about 5% sequentially, even though GMV per unit came down a bit. So just wondering if you could comment on whether you're seeing lower incentives or what's going on there? And then just more broadly, you mentioned that you're assuming for the year that the dealer wholesale market sees modest growth, which I think is consistent.

Speaker 7

But maybe you could just give us a little more depth on what you're seeing in the market and what you think the puts and takes are around like the market really opening up to its full potential?

Speaker 3

Yes. I'll start and then you can share. Yes. So our auction ARPU went up $20 quarter on quarter. I believe that's the highest actually it's been since we've gone public.

Speaker 3

So you're just continuing to see the benefit of our previous price increases and other optimizations that we're doing in terms of managing ARPU. So we're pretty pleased with that result, especially in the context of GMV per unit going down 16% year on year. So and that certainly drove the outperformance in our revenue margins for just our option insurance revenues, which hit 73% for the quarter, which is also the highest as we've gone public.

Speaker 2

Yes. What I'll add is we've been obviously pretty consistent that we felt comfortable with that midterm market sort of pricing ARPU targets that we've given our analysts and investors. And so we're on path to hitting that. And even though GMV has pressure, we said what we said to you all is even with the GMV pressure, meaning used car values going down, we still feel good about our midterm target. So that should give investors confidence in our ARPU.

Speaker 2

We feel good about that. And then your other question was really obviously generally about the market. I would say Q1, a little more color would be January a little hotter than maybe March ended, just generally price out of some of our competitors and others out there in the marketplace. The overall market in Q1, I would say was okay. It wasn't like the market sort of like really came back just yet.

Speaker 2

Having said that, when you read all the key leads, not just the volume, the dealer wholesale volume, I would say, across the industry, but it was not stellar yet. But you are seeing overall, you saw one of our competitors even recently say used car values are starting to go down. You're starting to see we look at all the signs of market health. We like where the industry is going.

Speaker 7

At the

Speaker 2

end of the day, used car values go down, would mean that independent dealers will buy these cars more affordably. They're going to retail it to their end consumers. So when we look at all the signs, even though some of them at the moment, from an investor perspective, you may look at like GMV going down as like a concern on ARPU. I wouldn't worry about that too much. We feel good about our ARPU.

Speaker 2

TMB going down will actually mean independent dealers can go buy these cars from trades and others. They can retail them to their end consumers. So to your point, I would say not a lot changed from last quarter. Our feeling that things will likely get better for us. All right, perfect.

Speaker 2

Thanks a lot for all that color. Yes. Thank you, Mike.

Operator

The next question we have is from Ron Josey of Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Hi, this is James Michael on for Ron. Quickly from me, it was encouraging to see the progress in transport with 95,000 unit source and the 300 basis points improved revenue margin. Can you expand on the operational work you do to improve transport at that frequency profitability? May I have Phil?

Speaker 2

Yes. The margin expansion and enhancements to transport have been consistent, obviously, and we've done a good job of continuing to add to our product and tech lane optimization, pricing, size of the vehicle, all the different attributes, we keep working on it. And we're doing this actually and obviously not an easy market. So overall, we're very pleased with our team. And we've got more work to do in this area, meaning that we've got more investments in the technology of ACE2 Transportation, but we're really just so pleased with the intelligence we're building into the lane pricing and sort of scaling scaling sort of lane by lane across the country.

Speaker 5

That's helpful. Thank you. And then I wanted to turn to ClearCar. Can you provide some additional color on how the lead gen conversion rates and margins are improving and the specific levers you have to improve execution? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes, certainly. Clear car is going really well. I mean, we've got we keep growing additional rooftops out there. Dealers love the product. Consumers really like the product.

Speaker 2

We're seeing incredible feedback. One of the things we did this quarter to give you all a little bit more color is we went out and we had a video done of a dealer group called Lester Glenn Auto. I really would encourage all of you to watch this video. It will give our investors really the voice of the customer. You'll hear them talk about how these tools are helping them at the end of the day make more money, close more transactions with the end consumer.

Speaker 2

They actually there's a quote in there about how they're doing so much better in their own internal conversion. And then think about it like optimizing their inventory. Optimizing their inventory is really important. The last couple of years dealers have been retailing cars, they should not have been retailing. Customer that's using ClearCar, ACV Max and customer that's using ClearCar, ACV Max and our marketplace, our ACV Auctions marketplace.

Speaker 2

So I think I'll leave you with that, Elyse. I think that'll be better than me just telling you what's in the video. I really would love for you to actually watch it.

Speaker 5

Fair enough. We'll take a look. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Next question we have is from Rajat Gupta of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Just one clarification from the prior answers. I think Bill you mentioned that organic OpEx was up low single digits. Does that also include some of the incremental investments related to auto IMS and like other integration efforts?

Speaker 5

And what would be the organic volume number tied to that low single digit OpEx number? And I have a follow-up.

Speaker 3

Thanks. Hey, Richad, it's Bill. Yes, so we as you know, we're not breaking out specifically any organic versus inorganic numbers other than to say that the Alliance acquisition from last quarter will represent about 5% of revenue for the year. So a little less than that for the quarter. The organic growth in OpEx does include partially some of the investments that we're making in connection with the acquisitions that we did.

Speaker 3

But the balance of that is part of the M and A bucket, if you will, since those integration costs directly relate to the M and A transactions. If you remember, in terms of the EBITDA that we inherited as part of those deals, we used part of that EBITDA to fund those integration costs.

Speaker 5

Got it. That's helpful. And just I think in the past you've given us some color on market share every quarter. What would you say your D2D market share performance was in the Q1?

Speaker 2

Yes. As you remember last call, we said we're going to start to do market share once a year. Obviously, we're doing it more often than that prior when the market was all crazy and wild. So but having said that, just to give you a little bit more color, I guess. But I guess moving forward, just keep in mind, we really like to be doing this once a year is one of our one of the outside sources out there auction that, which is NAAA mentioned that in their report that physical auction volumes were down 5% year over year.

Speaker 2

So that's not giving you like that just kind of gives like a framework of at least what, the collectively, the physical auctions said that dealer wholesale specifically, even though commercial was up, dealer wholesale was down 5%. So at least it could help you kind of get an idea. But I guess and having said, as I mentioned, we're we'll be doing that moving forward. Now that things are starting to normalize, we'll start to do that once a year.

Speaker 5

Got it. Got it. And then just one more on OpEx, if I may. You obviously mentioned like the step up in the remarketing integration, just the integration of the new remarketing centers. Is this should we treat this like OpEx step up this year because of that as more of like a one time thing or and then you have like better revenue versus OpEx leverage going forward?

Speaker 5

For example, like this year you're guiding to like 17% OpEx growth and 27% revenue growth, for example. Does that ratio get better going forward? We should assume this is more of like a one time dynamic for this year. I'm not sure if the question was clear, but any color would be

Speaker 2

helpful. Yes.

Speaker 5

I mean, I'm not sure if

Speaker 3

I would look at it as onetime and that we're going to be spending money for the integration through the end of this year. It will certainly dip into next year. That said, as we scale the business, we're going to continue to get OpEx leverage as we approach our midterm targets across the P and L, right, as we get more scale. So as we drive towards those targets, you're going to see leverage throughout the P and L, right, from kind of revenue margin down through OpEx. So we're essentially going to get that leverage, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to incur kind of onetime costs that are just going to go away.

Speaker 3

Since most of this is labor, right, because it's product development by the engineering teams. So it's I'm not sure I would look at it as per se one time. But we'll certainly get the leverage and continue to get the leverage that we've demonstrated in the past, and we'll continue to get that going forward as we scale.

Speaker 5

Understood. Thanks for all the color and taking the questions.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

The next question we have is from Nick Jones of Citizens JMP. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Great. Thanks for taking the questions guys.

Speaker 4

As you look to land more rooftops and you're having those conversations with those dealers, how much of a factor is kind of lower wholesale volume potentially in

Speaker 2

their reluctance

Speaker 4

to get on just because maybe they don't feel the need or the pressure to diversify. And to the extent that that is part of the conversation, things do start to improve in the back half and into next year. How well positioned is ACV to kind of accelerate landing rooftops while also kind

Speaker 3

of winning share in existing rooftop?

Speaker 2

Yes. Nick, it's a really good question. And maybe when I wasn't prepared, I'll do it on the fly. I think you're really pointing out an interesting topic and that's the dealers have less, to wholesale. So it's really not the top of mind, right?

Speaker 2

They're really they're trying to source more. They're trying to buy more from consumers. So your question, which I'll put back in the statement, is interesting. We could see a tailwind. As wholesale starts to come back, we start to see a conversion.

Speaker 2

I guess my initial gut reaction is probably favorable. Yes, I think you're on to something there. But I wouldn't say I put a lot of thought when we even had come to this call. But I think your guide is probably right that we could see as you it's almost like anything in life, the more of it more of it comes to you, the more of a problem is to address. There could be something there.

Speaker 3

Great. So then I guess my follow-up would be to the

Speaker 4

extent that there's potentially a tailwind and you guys are approaching your midterm targets. I mean, how much of a North Star is the midterm target? There's an opportunity to kind of maybe more aggressively invest in technology or landing those rooftops, because technology investments always been kind of part of the ECB story. So I guess, how nimble is the roadmap to the extent that maybe tailwind manifests?

Speaker 2

So I feel really good about the road map. I mean, when you look at consumer sourcing will help these dealers get the right inventory. When you look at the pricing strategies, helping them price vehicles correctly, when you look at the way we're merchandising assets inside the platform, We've got our commercial customers. I mean, you'll start to see commercial volume start to become more material over the next year. Each of these areas are all going to add up and that's why I still feel great about our midterm targets.

Speaker 2

We really have a quite sizable product and tech investment going on here across several different areas. And as those areas mature, we're already doing great. But there could be an accelerant. There could certainly be an accelerate. But I would say for now instead of creating yet a new expectation, the expectation I'll manage right now is I feel great about the midterm targets.

Speaker 2

And I would say as we get closer to those, that will create new expectations. But for now, I just leave it there. I think our product and tech investments and our overall position we're in, we're in a really good spot. All right. Thanks, George.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Nick.

Operator

Nick. The next question we have is from Gary Prestopino of Barrington Research. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Hey, good afternoon, George, Bill and Tim. A couple of questions on ClearCar. And I know it's early in the game here, but how much has this really proliferated through your dealer customer base at this point?

Speaker 2

We didn't really come in with a number today, but I think we've got we don't want to broadcast the number every earnings call. So I won't answer every call, but I think we're close to 700 rooftops or something like that. Okay. So we're still early. But Gary, I mean, that's fantastic for a brand new product, as you know.

Speaker 2

It might be one of the fastest growing auto tech companies and we look at it as a one product niche, probably one of the fastest growth ones out there. So we're but to your point, it's still early. I mean, there's 16,500 franchise rooftops. There's tens of thousands of independent rooftops. Necessarily everywhere either.

Speaker 2

Like we focused on the ACV Max joint customers. We focused on our good wholesale customers. And maybe towards the back half of this year, early next year, we'll start to step on the gas a little bit more from a sales perspective. But we kind of had our own pacing. And I will say we're a little we're definitely ahead of our pacing, which you just need to be set up to do so.

Speaker 2

I mean, we're behind the scenes, you're trying to turn on 30, 40, 50 customers a month. It's a lot to do. We feel great about it. We're ecstatic about our progress so far.

Speaker 7

No, that is good. And it just gives us an idea of the growth potential growth trajectory. And then I have 2 other questions regarding ClearCar. Of the dealers that are sourcing cars through ClearCar, are you finding that the majority of them will sell something through your platform because they're sourcing the car through your ClearCar product?

Speaker 2

Yes. So there are 2 options. They can either pay us the subscription like look at this like a bundle like with what we're doing with ACV Max. And so either they're paying us a healthy subscription or they're actually giving us wholesale hours. So we're getting 1 of the 2.

Speaker 2

Most of the customers we've turned on have agreed to the wholesale volume commitment and some of the customers that have come on have gone down the subscription bundled in with AC and Max. So we're happy with both. So we're not like pushing every dealer down a path. We have 2 options for down path A or path B and both are positive for ACV.

Speaker 7

And then just lastly, there's a lot of these kind of products out there dealers can use. How are you differentiating this competitively in the market?

Speaker 2

Yes, there's a few elements of why our product truly is unique. Before I get into those features, I'll just remind everyone, we're inspecting somewhere around 1,000,000 cars a year with humans. That inspections is giving us a data moat and detailed information about cars that really no one else we believe in the world has. So we're leveraging our technology using products like Monks that go around the vehicle and we're getting this unbelievable data moat. And what it's allowing us to do is take our inspection data and we've created this consumer offering where all the consumers do is go around the product basically using Monk, it's called clear heart capture, we don't call it Monk for the end consumer.

Speaker 2

And then we get the clear power condition based on having the consumer ask we ask the consumer a few questions. Well, those questions map to the same data in our inspection reports. And we all know that really the benefit of machine learning and leveraging artificial intelligence is having a really deep, deep, deep data profile. We have that. So we at least for right now, we have a huge competitive advantage over anyone else trying to price the consumer car.

Speaker 2

Now it's just a matter of us taking that competitive advantage, getting in front of dealers and helping it sort of transcend to sort of value add for ACV as well.

Speaker 1

Good answer.

Operator

The next question we have is from Naved Khan of B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Hi, this is Brian on for Naved. I was just hoping you could talk about plans for cash usage and also the M and A appetite going forward? Thanks. Hey, it's Bill. So, yes, we certainly did consume some cash in Q1 for some of the M and A transactions.

Speaker 3

We sell a fair amount of cash on the balance sheet, but what I would point you to are 2 factors. Number 1, look at cash net of the outstanding debt that we have on our credit facility, which was $125,000,000 at the end of March. And also keep in mind that at the end of Q1, dollars 174,000,000 of our cash was comprised of marketplace float, which is volatile quarter to quarter. And typically, the high point for the year is at the end of Q1, and that tends to trend down through the rest of the year. At this point, we feel pretty good about our liquidity position.

Speaker 3

We certainly have some flexibility. We want to retain that flexibility for other tuck ins as they come about as part of executing on our strategy

Speaker 5

to be

Speaker 3

in a position to penetrate the commercial market. Hopefully, that answers your question.

Speaker 2

And I'll just add to what Bill said. We're in a very, obviously, lucky and favorable position, have a strong balance sheet to be able to go after these tuck ins and other opportunities. So we don't take that favorable opportunity lightly and we're leveraging it to our advantage.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Tim Fox for closing comments.

Speaker 1

All right. Thank you, Eileen. Thanks, Eileen. We look to thank everybody for joining us on the call and look forward

Speaker 2

to see you on the conference circuit this quarter. Again, thank you for interest in ACV and have a great evening.

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Earnings Conference Call
ACV Auctions Q1 2024
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