From 70% Revenue Pivot to 5X Growth: Sanjay Varnwal on Building Spyne & Cracking the US Auto Market

In this insightful interaction with StartupTalky, Sanjay Varnwal, Co-founder and CEO of Spyne, talks about the journey of building Spyne, the bold decision to focus only on the automotive space, and how they are helping used car dealers grow faster with AI. He shares how Spyne built its own tech in India, grew across 47+ countries, and cracked the US market. Varnwal also talks about how AI is changing car retail and gives helpful advice to other founders building AI startups.

StartupTalky: What is Spyne's origin story and the key reasons behind the bold pivot from a horizontal platform to focusing solely on automotive retail?

Mr. Varnwal: Spyne started with a simple observation: the internet isn’t fair.

Whether it was fashion, food, real estate, or auto, small sellers were everywhere, but they were being left behind due to changing digital consumer behaviour. Big brands had access to photography agencies, professional photographers, and smart marketing teams. However, the local burger joint, the independent boutique, and the used car dealer didn’t stand a chance because they couldn’t match that level of visual quality, losing potential customers and business.

So we built Spyne with a broader vision: to make studio-quality content accessible to all. No studios, no fancy setups, just AI, a smartphone, and a mission to level the playing field. We served businesses across categories, F&B, real estate, automotive, and fashion, helping SMBs to enterprises create stunning visuals at scale at one-fourth the cost.

But as we scaled, cracks began to show.
Each category had its own complexities. What worked for food failed for fashion, and what worked in fashion didn’t translate to auto. A one-size-fits-all approach was holding us back.

That’s when we made the bold call: pivot entirely to automotive. It wasn’t easy, we let go of over 70% of our revenue, which raised investor concerns. But we believed in the potential of AI-powered car visuals, 360° spins, and automated videos—all generated via smartphone.

By 2023, it became clear that automotive wasn’t just outperforming, it had the most long-term potential, with a $14 billion addressable market. We phased out non-auto clients, made every team auto-first, and doubled down.

The result? We grew 5X in just 15 months. The pivot proved that being exceptional in one category beats being average in many.

Today, Spyne is not just an imaging solution, we’re transforming how used vehicles are retailed online, globally.

StartupTalky: Spyne is known as a deep tech company in computer vision and AI. Can you walk us through the tech moat you've built and how you overcame challenges like reflections, lighting, and angled surfaces using your proprietary datasets and in-house annotation?

Mr. Varnwal: At Spyne, we’re not just using AI, we’re building deep tech that redefines what AI can achieve in real-world conditions, especially in one of the most unforgiving environments for computer vision: outdoor automotive photography.

We’ve built everything in-house, from scratch, in Gurugram with a team of 70 engineers, including 15 core AI specialists. No tech roles have been outsourced. We’ve solved automotive’s toughest imaging challenges, vehicle perspective, poor lighting, background replacement, and proudly showcased what India can deliver on the global deep tech stage.

But none of this came easily.

Our goal was clear: enable used car dealers to capture studio-grade visuals using only a smartphone, even outdoors. That meant overcoming issues most AI models struggle with tilted surfaces, complex backgrounds, and reflections on car windows, while ensuring scalability.

The Data Void

AI models are only as good as their data. And we needed millions of accurately annotated images, not generic ones, but precisely labelled. We didn’t rely on off-the-shelf datasets. Instead, we built a proprietary annotation engine and created over 30 million purpose-built vehicle images, labelled down to glare zones, tire edges, and panel lines.

The Quality Challenge

Our early outputs were a reality check.
Cars looked like they were levitating due to broken shadow reconstruction. Windows became black mirrors. Paint colours shifted, and red cars looked orange in sunlight. Fixing one issue would create ten more. There wasn’t a single big breakthrough, it was a grind of 100+ micro innovations: panel-edge precision, light calibration, shadow realism, and more.

The Moat

Today, we have 80+ proprietary AI models delivering studio-quality output with 99% accuracy, covering background removal, glare correction, shadow recreation, and paint enhancement. We’ve also launched AI-generated 360° spins and marketing videos, elevating visual merchandising across every online channel.

StartupTalky: Spyne has grown from a visual merchandising tool to a full automotive retail suite. What drove this shift, and how does the platform now solve deeper dealer inefficiencies like lead management, sourcing, and pricing?

Mr. Varnwal: Spyne began by helping businesses improve their online presence with AI-led visual merchandising, high-quality visuals without expensive studio setups.

We found the strongest product-market fit in automotive, solving visual challenges with images, 360° spins, and automated videos. But working with thousands of dealers, OEMs, and marketplaces revealed a deeper issue: visuals were just the starting point.

The real friction was across the retail journey—sourcing, pricing, publishing, lead management, and sales, all of which were fragmented and manual. Dealers relied on gut feel, slow publishing processes, and juggled multiple tools not built for speed or scale.

To truly help, we evolved into a full-stack AI retail suite, one platform to run their entire business.

Here’s how Spyne supports the full dealership lifecycle:

• Sourcing Intelligence: AI-led tools to find, evaluate, and acquire inventory faster, from auctions or peer networks.
• Dynamic Pricing: Models recommend optimal buy/sell prices using market demand, competition, and vehicle condition.
• Visual Merchandising: Dealers create showroom-quality photos, 360° spins, and videos in under two minutes.
• AI Marketing: Auto-publishing across platforms, plus tools like an SEO-optimised website builder to boost visibility.
• Lead Management: Follow-ups, test drives, and CRM syncs are automated—no more missed leads.
• Inventory Insights: Real-time dashboards help dealers track performance and move stock efficiently.

All of this works together in one place, enabling even a small dealership to operate like a digitally advanced enterprise.

StartupTalky: India’s informal used car market poses challenges like manual systems and limited tech adoption. How is Spyne built to integrate seamlessly into these unstructured workflows without needing a tech team?

Mr. Varnwal: India’s used car market is vast and deeply fragmented. Over 70% of transactions still go through informal dealerships using manual records, inconsistent data, and gut-based pricing. These dealers lack access to CRM tools or listing automation, due to cost and reluctance toward technology.

We built Spyne for the 95% still figuring out how to go digital, a simple, mobile-first AI that doesn’t disrupt daily operations. No new infrastructure, no formal training. A smartphone is all they need.

Dealers can download the Spyne app, scan a VIN, and our AI pulls key details, make, year, colour, and features. Then, using guided workflows, they can shoot vehicle photos, 360° spins, even in poor lighting, and generate marketing videos.

Our AI, trained on over 30 million images, transforms these into studio-quality visuals with clean backgrounds, accurate colours, and enhanced presentation.

But it doesn’t stop at visuals. Spyne auto-generates a complete listing of features, condition reports, smart videos, and price suggestions. Dealers can publish it across marketplaces, social platforms, or their website, in a single tap.

We digitise the full dealership journey:

• Standardising inconsistent data
• Recommending competitive pricing via dynamic market analysis
• Tracking leads, follow-ups, and appointments via WhatsApp, SMS, or calls

All through one app, no tech staff or complex setup needed.

For solo dealers or teams of two, Spyne becomes the photographer, editor, marketer, CRM, and analyst, levelling the playing field.

StartupTalky: Spyne has seen rapid growth. What have been the key drivers behind this, and how does your performance-linked revenue model create aligned incentives with dealers?

Mr. Varnwal: Spyne’s 5X annual revenue growth over the past 15 months and a 3X target for FY 2025–26 has been driven by strong go-to-market execution, deep product innovation, and a high-touch support team.

In 2024, we doubled down on inbound and outbound efforts, attending high-footfall events like NADA, building partnerships with dealer management software providers in the US and Europe, and investing in integrations with legacy systems lacking open APIs. By solving the core need for better online merchandising and showing up where dealers are, we onboarded thousands globally.

Our SEO-led growth strategy has been pivotal. We launched 80+ free AI tools, including Image Enhancer, Number Plate Masking, Background Remover, and Shadow Correction, that address real dealer pain points. These tools attracted over 700,000 high-intent organic visitors, generated thousands of leads, and boosted domain authority, accelerating acquisition. We’ve onboarded 1,500+ rooftop dealers globally and are on track for our FY target.

Dealers using Spyne report measurable improvements in engagement, lead quality, and conversion speed. But what truly drives long-term growth is how our revenue model is built.

Unlike flat SaaS fees, our pricing scales with dealer success. As they move more inventory, generate leads, and close deals, their usage and our revenue increase. This creates a natural incentive loop: our growth depends on theirs.

That’s why dealers see Spyne not as a cost centre, but as a growth partner, one that drives faster sales, better margins, and lower overhead.,

StartupTalky: How will the recently raised $16 million in funds be used to accelerate your global goal of 20,000 rooftops and advance your next-gen AI solutions?

Mr. Varnwal: Following our $16 million Series A, our focus is on two core areas: AI-led product innovation and global market expansion.

AI-Led Product Innovation

We’re turning Spyne into a full-stack operating system for used car dealerships, infusing AI across pricing, inventory, CRM, publishing, and visual merchandising. We’re building faster, smarter, and more intuitive tools that don’t just digitise workflows, they optimise them.

From recommending the right price and generating marketing videos at scale to automating follow-ups on WhatsApp and email, every layer is designed to help dealers sell faster, smarter, and with less friction. We’re also focused on keeping the platform immersive and easy to use, requiring no formal training.

Global Expansion with Local Depth

Our top priority is the U.S., where we’ve already onboarded 1,200+ dealerships. We’re doubling down by hiring a seasoned auto leader and building a local team of 15–20 to scale across dealer networks. We’re replicating this model across EMEA and APAC, especially where legacy systems lag and Spyne’s tech can bridge the infrastructure gap.

Expansion isn’t just about reach, it’s about embedding ourselves locally with strong on-ground support, training, and partnerships for long-term growth.

Digitising Indian Dealerships

In India, we’re educating traditional used car dealerships, many still using paper-based systems, through pilot projects with top players in Delhi-NCR. The aim is to simplify AI adoption for dealers unfamiliar with tech.

This funding isn’t just about hitting the 20,000 rooftops milestone. It’s about reshaping how vehicles are bought and sold globally. From India to the U.S., we’re building a future where every dealership, regardless of size, can access world-class tech and compete at scale.

StartupTalky: Can you elaborate on your U.S. market strategy, especially how remote sales and DMS integrations have driven adoption?

Mr. Varnwal: Our strategy for the U.S. market has been built on three pillars: seamless tech integration, targeted go-to-market execution, and relentless focus on dealer workflows.

The U.S. used car market, worth over $500 billion, presents a massive opportunity, but it’s also one of the toughest to break into. Over 70% of dealerships rely on legacy dealer management systems (DMS) like vAuto and Homenet, which don’t have open APIs and are slow to adopt external innovations.

We couldn’t afford to be “just another tool.” We had to embed ourselves within systems that dealers already trusted. So, we built a dedicated integration team. After 6–9 months of persistent collaboration, we successfully integrated with both vAuto and Homenet, unlocking onboarding for 50,000+ dealerships. This brought onboarding time down from weeks to just 1–2 days, removing a major friction point.

Once the tech groundwork was laid, we launched a focused Account-Based Marketing (ABM) campaign, highlighting how Spyne’s AI-led visual merchandising could increase inventory turnover by up to 70% through enhanced image quality, listing consistency, and multi-channel publishing. With open rates of 40% and response rates 3x above industry norms, the campaign helped us capture high-intent interest at scale.

To support this demand, we built a remote-first sales engine with virtual demos, real-time onboarding, and 24×7 dealer support from India and other time zones—helping us engage across geographies without inflating cost. The result: from zero to over 1,200 rooftops in the U.S. within 15 months, generating 85% of our revenue from the market.

Our success wasn’t accidental, it stemmed from customer-first thinking, strategic partnerships, and aggressive execution.

These learnings helped shape our global playbook. Expanding to 47+ countries taught us that global scale isn’t about just translating the product, it’s about deep local integrations, respecting regional workflows, and earning trust in traditional dealer ecosystems.

StartupTalky: How do you see AI reshaping automotive retail beyond autonomous driving, from predictive maintenance to personalised customer journeys? What future innovations are you most excited to bring to the sector?

Mr. Varnwal: AI is re-architecting the entire automotive ecosystem—from how vehicles are built to how they’re bought, sold, and serviced.

While autonomous driving and predictive maintenance get much attention, what excites us most is AI’s impact on automotive retail, where the customer journey truly begins.

At Spyne, we see AI transforming retail through:

• Hyper-personalised recommendations that match buyers to the right vehicle based on intent, not just listings
• Proactive systems that act, optimising prices, updating listings, and auto-following up on leads
• Smart visual merchandising that adapts in real time to user behaviour, weather, and demand
• Conversational AIs that operate 24/7, redefining how dealerships engage with customers

Looking ahead, we’re excited about AI’s convergence with IoT, vision, and voice, enabling seamless, omnichannel retail. Imagine a customer browsing a 3D car, chatting with AI, negotiating, and closing the deal, all on their phone.

The real opportunity lies in creating intuitive, human-like experiences at scale. That’s the future we’re building toward, one where AI empowers every dealer to deliver intelligent, frictionless, and customer-first journeys.

The automotive future isn’t just autonomous, it’s adaptive, predictive, and deeply personal.

StartupTalky: What key advice would you offer to other entrepreneurs building AI-first startups with global aspirations?

Mr. Varnwal: For AI-first startups with global aspirations, my advice is this:

Firstly, think global from day one, but build with local empathy. Spyne was built in India, but scaled in the US. We stayed lean, capitalised on our engineering strengths, and focused relentlessly on solving a clear problem.

Secondly, don’t chase horizontal expansion too early. It’s tempting to go broad, especially with AI, where the tech feels universally applicable. But the magic happens when you go deep on one problem and then scale that insight across markets.

And lastly, stay fast, stay uncomfortable. Agility is your superpower. Large enterprises take time to adapt, but your business can move faster. Your ability to move fast and decide with clarity is non-negotiable.

Ultimately, it’s not about where you start, it’s about how clearly you see the problem, how fast you move to solve it, and how bravely you choose what not to do.

That’s how a homegrown solution scales into a global brand.

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