Upshift secures $400,000 in new vehicle financing
Big news: Upshift just secured $400,000 in new vehicle (debt) financing to add up to 20 more cars to our fleet!
Once we consume this line of credit, they have capacity to increase this line as we scale our fleet. Our interest rate (7%) will be nearly half of what we had been getting with our previous car financing (12%). This may sound high compared to consumer vehicle financing but these are actually really great terms for a startup commercial fleet line of credit, where interest rarely goes below 4-6%. Some finance companies wanted to charge us 14% and then they didn't even approve us! As we are now financing instead of leasing we will now be able to make a profit on the sale of the vehicle, which is how rental car companies actually make their money (not on the car rental business itself). They also have a relationship with other rental car fleets to source 1-2 year old used cars at scale which we may be able to get even cheaper than new cars. This finance company has decades of experience working with rental car fleets and it finally gives us a pathway to profitability on the vehicle financing side of our operation. It's taken us nearly 4 years to build the credit history to get this point and we are super excited to announce this news!