The Daily Download: J.D. Power Acquires Darwin Automotive

Today we have a big and important deal, as J.D. Power announced it has acquired Superior Integrated Solutions, also known as Darwin Automotive, in what is one of the larger AutoTech acquisitions ever.

Darwin is a leading provider of automotive F&I software used by automotive dealerships. Superior was founded by Phil Battista in 2014, which then launched the Darwin brand in 2017.

Darwin is a leader in F&I software and digital retailing with more than 7,700 dealers using its technology. The Darwin Automotive Platform is an industry-leading F&I menu software application, supporting both showroom and digital sales with highly personalized, customer-focused tools to select vehicle financing and protection options.

The technology leverages data and predictive analytics to customize customer offers based on a range of criteria including specific vehicle information, overall deal structure and the situation for each individual customer, creating the optimal F&I package. Widely adopted by the largest dealer groups in the United States, the Darwin Automotive Platform is used in one-third of all new-vehicle transactions today.

The whole digital retailing space has been red hot this past month, as we witnessed Roadster selling to CDK Global, and Gubagoo selling to Reynolds & Reynolds.

We expect the Digital Retailing space to continue to be active in the coming months, from an M&A standpoint.

Congratulations goes out to founder Phil Battista and the whole Darwin and Superior team.