With startups making acquisitions left and right, raising record amounts of capital, expanding across borders, evolving into unicorns, or making their debuts in the public markets, 2021 has truly been India year. And it seems that we are not done yet. This time, the e-commerce platform for pre-owned vehicles Cars24 raised $400 million in fresh funding from Alpha Wave Global (formerly known as Falcon Edge Capital).
The funding round included $300 million in equity and $100 million in debt from investors such as the Commercial Bank of Dubai and IFM Investors in Australia. The round places the valuation of Cars24 at $3.3 billion, a jump of over 80% from its previous valuation just 3 months back in September ($1.84 billion).
The proceeds from the current funding round will be utilized to fuel global expansion in the Middle East, Australia, and Southeast Asia, improve its current technology and deepen its footprint in the domestic market (this includes using it for the large-scale refurbishing labs it has set up across the country to improve the quality of cars before they are sold to customers). Cars24 co-founder and CEO Vikram Chopra said that it has “aggressive plans for 2022,” and that it continued to “build the best infrastructure for the future with an end-to-end digital customer experience.”
Founded by Chopra, Mehul Agrawal, Ruchit Agarwal, and Gajendra Jangid, the six-year-old Gurgaon-based unicorn leverages technology to deliver a seamless and simplified experience when it comes to buying cars. On Cars24, you can sell used cars on its online portal, and potential buyers can inspect the vehicles, check the price, and buy it without any major hassle. Cars24 claims that over 4, 00, 000 sellers have used its services to date.
It claims to have reported a growth of 50% in the last quarter, clocking over 90% market share in the online used car segment, and 70 in the calendar year 2021, when compared to CY20. It also recorded an annualized revenue run-rate of nearly $1 billion, based on last’s quarter performance.
