A car dealer wants to give cars a digital history — homes could be next

A car is not just a sales listing

Caritera's thinking starts from the idea that a car's sales listing is only one moment in the car's life.

A car can be given its own digital record, gathering things like service history, documents, photographs, technical details, battery data, warranty information and everything else that accumulates over the car's lifetime.

When the car is sold, the listing disappears. But the car itself should not vanish from the system. Its history ought to be transferable to the next owner.

A little Spotify and social media in the car trade

Caritera brings a social-media style of use to the car trade. Cars can be browsed, followed, shared and discovered through content as well.

Raudasoja likes to describe the goal with a slightly unusual comparison: Caritera could be the Spotify of the car trade.

The idea is not to copy Spotify, but to make the service just as easy to use. You see a car that interests you, you tap, and you are there. A user should not have to work out where a function is hiding.

Then homes joined in

As the car's digital history was being built, a new question came up: why could the same idea not be used for a home?

Property ought to be able to remember its own history.

A house has a ground-source heat pump, ventilation, a roof, appliances, electrical systems and a great deal more. Every one of them has its own history.

At Caritera the idea is taking shape that a home, too, could have its own digital property passport.

AI could help make sense of the data

Once a car's or a home's history starts filling up, there can be a great deal of it. That is why Caritera is also looking at how AI could help.

An electric car's battery test, for example, may contain a lot of numbers, but what matters most to the owner is understanding what the result actually means in practice.

From Finland to the world

Caritera is being built for international use. The platform already has users in 21 countries.

The first major dealership partnership has been formed in Florida in the United States. Negotiations are also under way with India, Saudi Arabia and Germany.

Caritera supports Arabic as well. Finland is a small country. If this becomes a platform that works, there is no sense in assuming it should stay only in Finland.

What will Caritera become?

Caritera's original idea was to build a new way to buy and sell cars. The idea has already grown beyond that.

A car could have a digital identity. A home could have a digital identity. Later the same could apply to other property as well.

Perhaps Caritera's most interesting idea is, in the end, a simple one: property ought to be able to remember its own history.

Caritera's story is only beginning.