Glenn Mercer and Maryann Keller are leveraging their automotive industry experience to form an alliance that assists startups and investors in the automotive industry. As part of a growing trend of more and more startups innovating in the automotive industry, Mercer and Keller want to reduce the number of startups that fail due to a lack of practical knowledge about the workings of the industry.
Both of them have decades of experience, with Mercer working as Partner within McKinsey & Co.’s automotive practice for 20 years dealing extensively with automotive products, in addition to having over 10 years of independent work advising venture capital and private and public equity investors. Keller, as a former securities analyst on Wall Street, has been making calls on the turns and trends within the automotive industry for over four decades.
“Startups in automotive often begin with a solid theoretical grounding within their niche, but have little practical knowledge of how the industry actually functions on a day-to-day basis,” said Keller in a press release. Mercer continued, “It’s easy to see where entrepreneurs can misread the landscape. Take online used-car marketplaces… the allure of avoiding a physical car lot may fade as the firm realizes it has replaced costly real estate with costlier logistics, as cars are repeatedly shuttled from sellers to buyers.”
For the operation of their own alliance, former vice president of Priceline.com, automotive dealer, and investment banker Ken Elias is leading the practice. They will advise any size of startup in the automotive industry, focusing on “nuts and bolts” instead of “deep tech” expertise more common in these startups.
Offices are located in Stamford, Connecticut and Scottsdale, Arizona.
