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In this episode, we sit down with Glenn Harwood, co-founder of AlgoDriven, who has just completed an all-cash exit to Emergence Software, a San Francisco-based hold-forever software company backed by the family office of the Pritzker family.
Glenn started selling cars at Mercedes-Benz in Australia at 20, became a top-15 salesperson nationally, moved to Al Ain and then Dubai, and eventually turned a frustration with how dealerships valued used cars into the number one automotive appraisal platform in both the MENA region and Australia.
AlgoDriven raised just $3M across three rounds, deliberately keeping rounds small to avoid dilution, grew revenue 5x since its 2021 Series A, and is profitable. The company now values over $25 billion worth of used cars annually across 1,000+ dealerships in 10 countries.
The deal is a 100% cash transaction valued between $10M and $50M, with early investors including Oman's sovereign wealth fund, Global Ventures, 500 Global, Automotive Ventures, Oraseya Capital, and Social Capital all receiving an immediate cash exit. Both co-founders are staying on for at least five years, and Emergence will invest new capital to drive expansion into the US and Latin America.
This is a rare thing in the MENA startup ecosystem: a genuine, completed exit story, all cash, investors made whole, founders staying on to keep building, and a product that isn't getting shelved.
Glenn is refreshingly open about the mechanics of the deal, the sleepless nights, and what it actually takes to close an acquisition on December 30th.
We cover:
How Glenn went from used car salesman to running the number one Mercedes used car department in Australia, and how that domain expertise became the foundation for everything that followed.
Why five valuers in a dealership would give five different answers for the same car, and why every industry still running on gut instinct is a startup opportunity.
Why every competitor digitised the clipboard and ended up with something more painful than pen and paper, and what AlgoDriven did differently.
How they expanded to ten countries on a $2M Series A while remaining profitable, and what the lean international expansion playbook actually looked like.
Why the acquisition beat raising a Series B, and how Emergence offered something a funding round couldn't.
What it's actually like to close a deal on December 30th, chasing signatures across three continents over Christmas on no sleep.
Glenn's honest framing of the VC game: you either IPO, get acquired, or go out of business, and why he's really happy with where they landed.
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Timestamps
00:00 – Introduction
05:00 – "You Either IPO, Get Acquired, or Go Out of Business"
06:30 – What is Algo Driven?
08:00 – From Computer Stores to Mercedes Sales
10:00 – The Spark: Why Car Dealers Need Better Data
14:00 – The Real Cost of Getting Valuations Wrong
16:00 – Building a Mobile-First Product with Consumer Feel
20:00 – First Customers and Taking VC Money
24:00 – International Expansion on a $2M Series A
28:00 – The Path to Emergent's Acquisition
34:00 – Deal Mechanics, AI, and What's Next
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