Today, we’re excited to announce six key hires, including two C-suite executives. Recently, we announced a $15 million Series A financing, which has enabled us to quickly scale our team to develop new e-commerce technologies and further streamline the online transaction and ownership experience.

“As we rapidly scale our growth, we’ve proudly expanded our team with best-in-class talent in nearly every key area — marketing, operations, sales, and technology — whose in-depth knowledge matches their passion for driving e-commerce success for our dealership partners.”
- Aaron Krane, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Modal

The six senior-level hires are:

• Sameer Bhalla, Chief Operating Officer: Sameer brings over a decade of high-growth technology expertise as both an exited founder (Swoop/Agero) and a growth investor (TCV).
• JJ Gangi, Chief Technology Officer: JJ offers 15 years of Silicon Valley engineering and product leadership from Words With Friends (acquired by Zynga), Parallel6 (acquired by PRA Health Sciences), Swoop (acquired by Agero), Comcast/Xfinity X1, and Omnicom Group.
• Brandee Sanders, Vice President of Marketing: Brandee is an award-winning digital data expert, sought-after keynote speaker, and women-in-technology educator, who has collaborated and worked with Sony Music, BlackLine, Nasdaq, Etsy, G2, and, most recently, Appetize.
• Chris Bair, Vice President of Sales: Chris joins Modal after 10 years in leadership in high-growth startups such as NGINX, Samsara, and Keeptruckin.
• Mike Sachs, Vice President of Strategic Relationships: Mike offers over 20 years of senior-level automotive sales and marketing experience from Volkswagen of America, BMW of North America, and Maserati, as well as automotive-brand agencies.
• Todd Somerville, Vice President of Strategic Relationships: Todd joins from Cox Automotive and Reynolds and Reynolds, offering expertise in enterprise/major account sales- and performance- management in automotive retail.

Our recently expanded team will drive efforts for the automotive e-commerce platform, which enables car dealers and brands to deliver contactless, optimized, and fully transacted online buying that fits inside their own webpages, while increasing sales profits by up to 80 percent.

Since the pandemic, we've experienced a surge in demand, which generated a 700% increase in online checkout customers, and we achieved profitability in May 2020. To meet this demand, we've grown our team dramatically and will continue to make new hires throughout 2021.

You can find the official press release here.