TrueCar Steers Between Buyers and Dealers En Route to Wall Street

Everyone likes having a new car; buying one is a different matter. A range of businesses try to sell price transparency as a way to level the playing field between the average car shopper who goes through the process about once every 10 years and the teams of professionals who do it about 10 times a day. Now we’ll get a closer look at one of them: TrueCar, a Santa Monica (Calif.)-based company that filed initial public offering paperwork last week.

Formerly known as Zag.com, TrueCar is interesting, because it isn’t just a platform for listings or a portal for pricing data. It essentially acts as a broker that allows car buyers to reach an agreement with a local dealer without an afternoon of excruciating negotiations and “what-can-I-do-you-for” chitchat. TrueCar says it’s hoping to trade under the ticker “TRUE.”