CarLotz is now officially a publicly traded company.

Its shares began trading Friday on the Nasdaq Global Market, following the completion of its merger Thursday with Acamar Partners Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition corporation. The merger was first announced in October.

The combined company’s ticker symbol is “LOTZ.”

“Today marks another major milestone for CarLotz as we begin this next chapter as a public company. I couldn’t be more proud of the CarLotz team today, including all our CarLotz alumni, who put their hearts and souls into growing this business,” CarLotz co-founder and chief executive officer Michael Bor said in a news release.

“We would not be where we are today without our team’s grit, determination, focus on the guest experience, and adherence to our core values. With our differentiated business model, including the only Consignment-to-Retail Sales Platform, and the continued execution of our growth strategies, we are well positioned to advance our vision of transforming the used vehicle industry,” Bor said. “We look forward to building on the success we have driven to-date, and delivering value for all of our stakeholders.”

Funding the merger was a blend of $311 million of cash-in-trust of Acamar Partners and $125 million in PIPE proceeds. The latter was committed by various institutional and strategic investors.

Acamar Partners CEO Luis Solorzano said in the release, “We are excited to announce the closing of our business combination with CarLotz. Michael and his team have established a proven platform for growth that will be further enhanced by this combination. We look forward to seeing the CarLotz team capitalize on the near and long-term growth opportunities, as they continue to disrupt the used vehicle industry, and supporting them in this new chapter.”  

TRP Capital Partners managing director Steve Carrell added, ““We are thrilled to see CarLotz gain the financial support needed to roll out its unique retail automotive experience nationally. The Company’s technology, omni-channel marketing and asset-light inventory sourcing model provide a best-in-class experience for consumers to buy, sell, trade or consign vehicles, creating a differentiated model to grow its market share over the long term.”

 'The beginning of something amazing'

Auto Remarketing caught up with Bor, the CarLotz CEO, on Friday to talk about this landmark day in the company's history for an episode of the Auto Remarketing Podcast.

At the top of the interview, Bor makes this analogy, harkening back to his high school days, when a graduation was referred to as a “commencement.”

At that time, he considered “commencement” to mean the end of something, but he soon realized the word actually refers to a beginning.

“And this transition to being a public company feels very much the same way,” Bor said in the podcast episode. “In many ways, it's the ending of this kind of grueling, eight-month transaction that we've done. It's the end of being a private company and some of the benefits and drawbacks of that.

“But it really is the beginning of something amazing,” Bor said. “And that is, an amount of capital that is 10 times as much as we've raised cumulatively since we started the company, with which to go and grow considerably from where we are today; take this model that we've built and refined — it still isn't perfect, but it's really good — take it around the country and be able to offer our services to more consignors and more car buyers and more individual sellers of vehicles.”

In the full epsiode of the podcast — which can be found below — Bor shares more about this “commencement,” the process of going public via SPAC merger and the comapny's growth plans, including its recent announcement of upcoming hubs in Seattle and Orlando, Fla.