Truebil, an online marketplace enabling users to buy and sell second-hand cars, has today announced that it has raised a follow-on Series A investment of around Rs. 20 crore from Shunwei Capital — a China-based VC firm.
Earlier, in January 2016, the company raised $5.5 million in the first tranche of its series A funding round from Kalaari Capital, Inventus Capital and San Francisco-based Tekton Ventures.
With this infusion of fresh capital in the company from Shunwei Capital, whose backers include Xiaomi founder Lei Jun, the total amount raised by Truebil so far stands at $9 million.
Commenting on the investment, Tuck Lye Koh, CEO at Shunwei Capital, said,
Truebil’s business model is one that we are familiar with. We believe this puts us at an advantage in anticipating the opportunities and challenges that this business presents.
The company’s business model is similar to that of Chinese firm RenRenChe, in which Shunwei Capital has invested heavily in. Suraj Kalwani, CEO of Truebil said that they will be using the proceeds primarily towards skill development and augmenting the technological infrastructure of the company.
This investment marks Shunwei Capital’s debut in the Indian startup ecosystem. The investment comes at a time when Chinese investors are being aggressively courted by Indian entrepreneurs and their backers. As per the reports, the VC firm is also in talks to invest in gaming startup Mech Mocha.
Truebil started its operations in March 2015. However, unlike other car selling websites like CarDekho and CarTrade, Truebil is focused on a rather unique, peer-to-peer sale of cars. The platform offers features like free inspection, valuation, quick sell guarantee, vehicle buying consulting, smooth paper transfer, loan assistance and insurance among others. Each car on the platform undergoes an intensive inspection by the in-house automobile engineers before the Truebil team lists the verified cars on the platform.
In this space, the company competes with the likes of CarDekho, CarTrade, Quikr, OLX, and Droom, which has raised around $43 million in three funding rounds. However, considering how Trubil’s model is completely different from what these above, ‘usual classified’ websites offer, the startup could safely call itself in a niche of its own.
