Automobile platform CarDekho becomes unicorn with USD 250 million pre-IPO round

Jaipur-headquartered CarDekho, which operates online platforms for new and utilised cars and trucks, has landed into the unicorn club following boosting a USD 250 million Collection E round led by Leapfrog Investments at a valuation of USD 1.2 billion. Canyon Associates, Mirae Asset, Harbor Spring Cash, and existing backers Sequoia Cash and Sunley Dwelling also participated in the funding.

This pre-IPO spherical comprised USD 200 million in fairness and USD 50 million in personal debt, the organization mentioned in a assertion on Wednesday, without the need of revealing the timeline for its public listing.

With the most up-to-date fundraise, CarDekho became the 33rd company to flip into a unicorn in 2021. The 13-yr-outdated agency ideas to use the refreshing money to speed up the development of pre-owned auto transactions as perfectly as auto funding and coverage. Now existing in India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, the organization will also use the money to develop internationally.

CarDekho purchases cars from buyers from a lot more than 100 marketplaces and sells them on its platform, together with new cars and trucks. It operates different vehicle portals these types of as CarDekho.com, Gaadi.com, ZigWheels.com, BikeDekho.com, InsuranceDekho.com, and PowerDrift.com, between other folks. The firm performs with more than 3,500 new vehicle sellers and 4,000-moreover utilised car sellers and collaborates with a lot more than 14 fiscal establishments and 40-furthermore insurance plan businesses to facilitate utilized auto finance and insurance plan. In September 2021, it achieved a USD 100 million annual earnings run charge.

Amit Jain, co-founder and CEO of CarDekho, reported the enterprise has developed to turn into a finish ecosystem for vehicle purchasing, lifecycle management, and advertising from being a auto investigation portal more than the very last decade. “The new resources will assist us increase our utilized vehicle transactions and money services firms,” he extra.

The organization also counts marquee investors, like Sequoia Funds India, Hillhouse Money, Ping An, Sunley Household, CapitalG, Situations Web, Trifecta, Situations Internet Restricted, Kreatif Media Karya, and Dentsu, between some others, as backers.

“We count on CarDekho to keep on on its swift progress trajectory thanks to the caliber of the crew and the remarkable tailwinds which this phase now enjoys from raising formalization, digitization, and transparency,” mentioned Stewart Langdon, partner and co-head of South Asian investments at LeapFrog.

The progress comes at a time when India’s pre-owned motor vehicle market is heating up—with world wide buyers pouring hundreds of thousands and thousands of dollars into the fast expanding section and incumbents eyeing general public markets.

Very last thirty day period, Gurugram-dependent Automobiles24, a platform for selling and purchasing used motorbikes and automobiles, raised USD 450 million in Sequence F from SoftBank, Falcon Edge, and Tencent, together with participation from existing traders. Previously in July, utilised car or truck market Spinny closed a USD 108 Series D spherical led by Tiger World-wide. That identical month, yet another competitor, Droom, claimed it received the initial tranche of USD 200 million pre-IPO funding round, which turned it into a unicorn at a valuation of USD 1.2 billion. The vehicle system is reportedly looking to file draft papers for a USD 135 million IPO with the Indian market regulator later on this 12 months.

Droom’s IPO will comply with the public listing of CarTrade, an on the web marketplace for new and utilised autos that took position previously in July. By means of the community issue—which was a total present for sale by present traders and shareholders—CarTrade raised INR 29.9 billion (USD 403 million), giving its backers a prosperous exit. On top of that, ride-hailing large Ola has also entered the new and pre-owned car retailing enterprise just lately in a bid to diversify its merchandise portfolio right after the COVID-19 pandemic dampened the demand from customers for its core company. With CarDekho getting into the elite billion-dollar-plus club and eyeing general public markets, the on the net car sector is established to turn into even extra aggressive.