Shift Technologies

Launched in 2014, Shift Technologies was a consumer-centric, omnichannel retailer for buying and selling used cars. Its disruptive technology solutions leveraged a proprietary machine learning-driven, end-to-end e-commerce platform, coupled with retail locations, to provide a more efficient used car buying experience. Shift generated more than $670 million in revenue in FY22.

Facing unavailing capital markets and industry-wide headwinds as it attempted to implement restructuring initiatives, Shift experienced significant liquidity issues resulting in its Chapter 11 in October 2023. Shift retained Hilco Streambank as its intellectual property advisor shortly thereafter. Hilco Streambank assisted the debtors in preserving their intangible assets and ran a robust marketing and sale campaign for assets including their premium domain names Shift.com and Fair.com, trademarks, and technology platform, including software enabling their proprietary vehicle pricing engine, a DTC e-commerce platform, and third-party marketplace.

Throughout our process, we contacted 197 strategic and financial buyers and worked 40 parties through an NDA and diligence process. Hilco Streambank’s efforts resulted in the debtors designating a stalking horse bidder for the domain name and brand assets, allowing Shift to separately monetize its software. Through a competitive auction process, Hilco Streambank assisted Shift in closing four transactions for all of its intangible assets, including its software, for an aggregate value nearly 2.5x the original stalking horse offer. The sales closed in March 2024.