SAN FRANCISCO — Prodigy, an Alchemist Accelerator company providing a unique, full-stack sales solution for the $1.1 trillion automotive retail dealership market, today announced it has closed a $5.4 million seed funding round.

Lead venture capital investors include 8VC, Battery, SV Angel and CrunchFund in addition to several private angels in the automotive industry. Funds will be used to market the company’s already-developed automotive sales platform and grow headcount, according to Prodigy’s CEO, Michia Rohrssen.

“Prodigy’s main advantage is how integral we become to the sale of every car in a dealership. There are many solutions that promise to ‘revolutionize car buying’ for the dealer, but if you look at the actual stats, they are only touching 2% to 3% of all sales. That’s no revolution,” Rohrssen said. “Consumer buying habits have changed and we want to help the dealerships evolve with them.

“I joined this industry because of my love for cars,” Rohrssen added. “I bought my first car when I was 14 before I could legally drive it, raced cars and ran the car club all through college and have owned about 15 in my life — this isn’t about Silicon Valley trying to disrupt an industry just because it can; it’s about modernizing and giving back to the community.”

Rohrssen said Prodigy’s patent-pending SaaS platform has been rigorously engineered and tuned to the specific needs of auto dealerships seeking a next-generation solution that enhances all aspects of the customer experience.

Prodigy enables online, instore or a bidirectional blend of sales between the two and ensures process management compliance, full lender/factory/credit bureau integration and a range of sales experience enhancements such as on-lot driver license scanning for instant drive tests. Prodigy fully integrates with all legacy systems and dealer-specific software, all according to the company.

“Car buying is changing and dealers need to adapt if they want to keep up,” said Levan Seperteladze, general manager of High Point, N.C.’s Vann York Toyota and an SET dealer. “Prodigy lets us engage our customers both online and in-store and delivers a consistent, modern experience with one platform. The results have been great and our sales team adopted the technology quickly. We sold cars with Prodigy the first day it went live and, in the first month, 96% of our sales went through Prodigy.”