RTTNews | Mar 18, 2021 07:06AM EDT

07:06 Thursday, March 18, 2021 (RTTNews.com) - Shares of artificial intelligence lending platform Upstart Holdings, Inc. (UPST) are up more than 44% in the pre-market trade on Thursday.

Wednesday the company had announced its decision to acquire Prodigy Software, Inc., a provider of cloud-based automotive retail software.

According to Upstart, Prodigy's end-to-end sales software bridges the gap between how dealerships operate and the new way that people are shopping for cars.

Prodigy has powered more than $2 billion in vehicle sales at franchised dealers from leading brands including Toyota, Honda, and Ford.

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021.

Separately, Upstart announced its fourth-quarter results by reporting earnings that beat the Street view.

Adjusted earnings were $0.07 per share in the quarter, that beat the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters at $0.02 per share.

Total revenue in the quarter was $86.7 million, an increase of 39% year-over-year.

Looking forward, Upstart expects revenue in the fourth quarter to be in the range of $112 million to $118 million and in the full-year to be about $500 million. The consensus estimate for revenue is at $73.78 million for the first quarter and $354.3 million for the full year.

UPST closed Wednesday's regular trading at $60.79, up 1.23%.

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