Businesses
Autonex Launches as Unified Automotive Marketplace Group Across Europe and Canada
13 Oct 2026
The new group brings together AutoScout24, AutoTrader.ca, AutoHebdo.net, LeasingMarkt.de and AutoProff under a shared AI-enabled platform serving more than 40 million monthly users.
13 October 2026 — Munich — A new international automotive marketplace group, Autonex, has launched as a unified business bringing together established vehicle platforms across Europe and Canada.
The group includes brands such as AutoScout24, AutoTrader.ca, AutoHebdo.net, LeasingMarkt.de and AutoProff, while keeping those consumer- and dealer-facing brands active in their existing markets.
Autonex says the combined group generates more than €800 million in annual revenue, reaches over 40 million unique monthly users, works with more than 45,000 dealer partners and carries more than two million vehicle listings at any given time.
The company has leading market positions across several territories, including Canada, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and the Nordic markets.
One group, multiple established marketplace brands
The launch does not replace the company’s existing consumer brands. Instead, Autonex will operate as the group structure behind them, with local marketplaces continuing to serve their existing audiences.
AutoScout24 will remain the group’s principal consumer marketplace brand across Europe, while AutoTrader.ca and AutoHebdo.net continue in Canada. LeasingMarkt.de remains focused on the German vehicle leasing market, while AutoProff supports European dealer-to-dealer wholesale trading.
According to Autonex, bringing these businesses together under a single group is intended to improve how technology, commercial capabilities and product development are shared across markets.
CEO Peter Brooks-Johnson said:
We have built a business with the scale, technology and ambition to transform how vehicles are bought, sold and leased across Europe and Canada.
He said the unified structure should allow the company to innovate more quickly while improving outcomes for both dealers and consumers.
Autonex Intelligence brings AI into the automotive marketplace
A central part of the strategy is Autonex Intelligence, the group’s suite of AI-powered products and capabilities.
The system is built around proprietary marketplace data generated from vehicle listings, consumer activity and dealer relationships across the group.
Rather than deploying AI as a standalone product, Autonex plans to embed these capabilities directly into the car buying, selling and dealership experience.
The company says Autonex Intelligence will be marketed through AutoScout24 Intelligence in Europe and AutoTrader Intelligence in Canada.
Two of the first areas of development are conversational vehicle search and an AI-powered dealer agent.
Conversational search moves beyond filters
Traditional automotive marketplaces rely heavily on filters such as price, mileage, model, fuel type and age.
Autonex wants to expand that model through conversational search.
The company says buyers will be able to describe what they need in more natural language, allowing the platform to act more like a personal car-buying assistant.
For example, instead of manually selecting dozens of filters, a buyer could potentially describe their budget, family requirements, driving habits or preferred features and receive more targeted results.
Autonex argues that this could also benefit dealers by producing more relevant and better-informed customer enquiries.
The wider business opportunity is clear: as consumers increasingly use generative AI to research products, automotive marketplaces are trying to keep that behaviour within their own platforms rather than allowing the customer journey to move elsewhere.
Dealer agent aims to turn data into recommendations
The second major AI capability is designed specifically for dealers.
Autonex says its planned dealer agent will analyse marketplace and performance data to make recommendations around areas such as pricing, listing visibility and listing quality.
The aim is to reduce the amount of manual analysis required by dealerships and make marketplace data more actionable.
For dealers managing large inventories, small changes to pricing, photography, descriptions or vehicle positioning can influence how quickly stock sells.
Autonex is positioning the agent as an AI-powered business partner that helps dealers identify which actions are most likely to improve performance.
Shared technology creates economies of scale
The launch of Autonex also reflects a broader platform strategy.
Instead of developing technology separately for each local marketplace, the group plans to operate from a shared infrastructure that allows products and commercial capabilities to be rolled out across several countries.
That model could reduce duplication while allowing successful products developed in one market to be introduced elsewhere more quickly.
At the same time, Autonex says local expertise will remain important, particularly because vehicle pricing, regulation, consumer preferences and dealer structures differ substantially between countries.
The group therefore intends to combine centralised technology with local market operations.
Cross-border vehicle trading becomes another growth area
Autonex is also targeting the fragmented European dealer-to-dealer market.
Differences in vehicle supply, demand, pricing and stock mix create significant cross-border trading opportunities, but the company says many transactions have historically been managed through informal or inefficient processes.
Through AutoProff, Autonex wants to make that trade more structured.
Services include sourcing, auctions, pricing, vehicle inspection, escrow, transportation and support with tax-related processes.
For dealerships, easier access to cross-border inventory could help address local supply shortages or improve the economics of particular vehicle categories.
For Autonex, it creates another revenue opportunity beyond consumer marketplace listings.
Three pillars behind Autonex’s growth strategy
The group says its strategy rests on three areas: large automotive marketplaces, a scalable shared technology platform and an expanding suite of dealer services.
Combined, these provide Autonex with exposure to multiple points in the automotive transaction.
Consumers use its marketplaces to discover vehicles. Dealers use the platforms to advertise and manage stock. AutoProff supports wholesale transactions, while Autonex Intelligence is intended to add AI-driven decision support across the process.
This broader model moves the company beyond operating classified-advertising websites toward providing infrastructure and software around vehicle commerce.
A new phase for digital automotive marketplaces
The automotive marketplace sector has already undergone a major shift from print listings to online search.
The next stage is increasingly focused on data, automation and AI.
Platforms hold large amounts of information on vehicle prices, consumer demand, dealer stock and marketplace behaviour. Companies that can turn that information into useful recommendations may be able to deepen relationships with both buyers and sellers.
Autonex’s launch reflects that transition.
Rather than presenting itself simply as the owner of several automotive websites, the group is positioning its shared platform, proprietary data and AI capabilities as the foundation of its future growth.
About Autonex
Autonex is an international automotive marketplace group operating across Europe and Canada.
Its portfolio includes AutoScout24, AutoTrader.ca, AutoHebdo.net, LeasingMarkt.de and AutoProff. The group reports annual revenue of more than €800 million, over 40 million unique monthly users, more than 45,000 dealer partners and more than two million vehicle listings at any given time.
More information: https://www.autonex.com/
