Automotive sales and technology company MotorK plans to raise €150 million (£127m) with an initial public offering (IPO) of shares on the dutch stock exchange, Euronext Amsterdam, before the end of the year.

The company, which provides a software platform for car dealers to help them manage sales and marketing activities, says it will use the proceeds to invest in developing new products and to gain market share through acquisitions.

MotorK has more than 250 employees spread over seven countries across Europe and in Israel. It’s key product, a software as a service (SaaS) platform called SparK, is used by more than 660 dealer groups and 13 equipment manufacturers.

Marco Marlia, chief executive officer and co-founder of the company, said: “We are thrilled to announce our planned IPO, which we believe will unlock massive opportunities for our business, customers, partners, and our people. As a tech company with automotive in our DNA, we have worked tirelessly to build a market-leading platform and a successful growth strategy that combines organic growth with strategic acquisitions.

“We believe this is just the beginning of our journey and that the runway ahead of us is expansive. We are positioned to accelerate our growth and strongly believe that now is the right time to pursue an IPO, which will help provide the resources to invest in our platform and our team and to support our goal of accelerating the evolution of the automotive industry.”

MotorK also offers ancillary services such as online marketing, training and setup services. Part of this service is currently in transition to become part of the SparK platform as a recurring SaaS advertising module called “AdSparK”. AdSpark is targeted to become part of SparK in the first half of 2022.

In 2020, MotorK's customers managed 1.4 million vehicles through MotorK’s solutions and had over 50 million unique users, considering the sum of unique users on each dealers’ website with active users. Additionally, during the second quarter of 2021 more than 145,000 cars were sold by dealers using the platform’s CRM Module.

The IPO is expected to take place before the end of 2021, subject to market conditions and receipt of the necessary authorisations from Euronext Amsterdam and the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets.

MotorK appointed Andrea Servo as its global chief financial officer (CFO) in June this year.