In recent days Horizon Automotive presented the new three-year plan until 2028. Not only that: the start-up also announced a new strategic alliance with Facile.it. The founder and CEO of Horizon Automotive, Luca Cantoni, delved into these topics for our microphones in the company of the CEO of Facile.it, Maurizio Pescarini.
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Horizon CEO Luca Cantoni speaks
“From the point of view of the 2025 results, they are in line with the industrial plan we communicated at the beginning of last year. The factors behind the growth and the achievement of these results are manifold but identifiable by prioritizing two aspects. One is the growth of the dealer network, which not only in numerical terms rises to 65 units but is also individually capable of intercepting customers that until yesterday we were unable to reach. The second pillar is certainly the technology part, with all the equipment that helps the dealer simplify the proposal of a long-term rental. Everything is built to make this model scalable, which means no longer focusing only on B2B but also on private individuals.”
Between present and future
“The pillars of the new industrial plan are basically two, and in the foreground are the projects under construction and collaboration with the main Italian car manufacturers, which increasingly see Horizon as a player, a performance partner, therefore a technology and mobility company that helps manufacturers accelerate the sales of long-term rental registrations of their brands, all channeled through their networks. The second major pillar is certainly the newborn synergy with Facile.it; it is in fact a new rebirth. Let’s not forget that Horizon is still effectively a start-up, which however, despite the 2025 numbers, has the ambition in 2028 to exceed 50.000 aggregate cars over the three years. This means that roughly one in three cars in the intermediated rental market in Italy will be sold also and above all through a whole series of additional synergies thanks also to the merger with Facile.it.”
Vision of the long-term rental market
“All these circular economies open up an infinite series of possibilities for network growth in a market, that of long-term rental, which certainly still has much to express in terms of missed opportunities across a whole class of customers, especially private individuals and VAT numbers, who even today, especially for those who do so little mileage, have, thanks to our economies of scale, the possibility of accessing products and fees and prices that until yesterday were not obtainable.”
Word to the CEO of Facile.it Maurizio Pescarini
“Some say we are a comparator, some a software, some an algorithm, some an intermediary. We consider ourselves an omnichannel broker enabled by technology. We boast a truly unique and distinctive positioning on the market. Broker means that we are certainly an intermediary but that we also provide added value both to the user and to our distribution. We try to become the interface for the customer throughout their entire life cycle for all the offers we propose. And we aim to offer unique products and rates on the market with distinctive players who work with us exclusively. And obviously we intend to support the customer with the bureaucracy on all the various products.”
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Omnichannel broker
“It is a theme and a model that many talk about and that we have truly managed to achieve. We started back in 2017 with the opening, after the web and the call center, of our first physical store in Varese. Currently, in terms of channels, we have the web with over 5 million unique users per month, operations and the call center where we have 600 people all in Italy and all internal without recourse to outsourcing, 80 proprietary stores in the territory, so where our employees are, 200 ‘Facile.it Exclusive’, effectively a franchise-like model in which an entrepreneur sells through our platforms exclusively with our company. And we also have about 1.200 multi-firm agents, 120 business consultants, 30 corners in shopping centers destined to rise to 70. And with Horizon’s entry into the group, a hundred car dealers on which we will develop our strategy and joint synergies.”
Alliance with Horizon Automotive
“Horizon’s entry into our group has a profound industrial value, like all the acquisitions we have made to date. We work on three dimensions: offers, channels, and customer segments. With Horizon, we are going to cover and strengthen in particular the long-term rental product on a channel we did not occupy, which is that of dealers. As for technological innovations, there will be several: first of all, in 2026 we will launch together with Horizon Automotive a functionality we have called Bridge, which will allow dealers to provide the platform also to their own sales network, managing all the reporting and commission part within it.”
Future progress
“Furthermore, we have already launched a pilot lead generation from our website to dealers, who will indeed receive qualified leads on which to develop the product. In terms of synergy, we will work on two axes: on one hand, we will show Horizon’s offers within our showcase, precisely generating leads for dealers; on the other, we will provide dealers with the characteristic products of our offer, in particular insurance and financing to support car sales. In a second phase, we will also add value-added services such as assistance and protection.”
