Car-marketplace Carro has picked up $12 million in the latest round of funding. While the lead investor of the round is undisclosed, the round was joined in by previous investors that include Venturra Capital, Alpha JWC and Singtel Innov8.
With this round of financing, Carro has set up a new subsidiary to make automobile financing more accessible. The startup came across the problem of credit financing for its customers, a majority of people in Southeast Asia purchase via taking a loan. So, those who do not have access to credit, cannot buy cars, and this was a matter of concern for the company.
This led Carro to create its own subsidiary – Genie Financial Services, which will be responsible for developing a Genie Finance App. The app will use algorithms to calculate the quick and accurate prices of loans considering individual profiles. The subsidiary is defined to be a “hire purchase provider” which provides swift auto loan approvals, and AI-based chatbot for interested people to use. Alpha JWC Managing Partner Managing Partner Chandra Tjan in a press statement, said,
As Carro got to scale, we realised that getting access to auto financing can be complicated. We set up a team to look into providing a one-stop, speedy, hassle free solution for customers looking for auto financing. That team eventually became Genie.
The wholly owned subsidiary will be overlooked by Helen Neo who boasts experience of over 30 years in the financing sector. Carro’s CEO Aaron Tan mentioned that there will be a notable difference in the way they will write the loans compared to the banks. This can be attributed to the fact that they know the car selling and purchasing business in-and-out, and certainly better than a bank.
It has constructed its own algorithms and based on the accumulated data, it can come up with more accurate car values and price loans. He added that the company, fundamentally, understands the value of a vehicle over a certain period of time.
Carro claims to have sold cars worth $50 million in the past year. It has a price evaluation tool for cars, named Graph.sg, an online car accessories website and an app, Carro Workshop, to look for car maintenance shops nearby using customer reviews and feedbacks.
