Delhi-based used car platform Spinny acquires Hopcar
Delhi-based Spinny, which operates in the pre-owned car segment, has acquired Gurgaon-based Hopcar, another startup in the same industry.
“The used car market is a very fragmented segment with many different players tackling the same issues in their own ways. HopCar was one such player who were working on very similar lines to our own at Spinny. The acquisition will further strengthen our position in Delhi-NCR and bring greater efficiency to our operations in Bengaluru as well,” says Niraj Singh, CEO and Co-founder, Spinny.
Spinny, which offers its services in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru, now plans to expand to other Tier-I and Tier-II cities by the end of this financial year.
Niraj adds that with the entry of many new players in the market, the acquisition places Spinny in an advantageous position in the otherwise still nascent pre-owned car market in India.
According to the company, in the coming months, it will introduce new features that will allow it to better cater to consumer needs while at the same also further improve the overall consumer experience for people looking for a reliable, data-driven, and transparent platform to buy or sell pre-owned cars. This will also help the consumer to understand the reasoning behind the pricing and certification provided by Spinny.
Launched in April 2015, Spinny calls itself a C2C, fulfilment–based, end-to-end solution provider in the pre-owned car segment.
“Having witnessed information asymmetry being a hindrance in the process of buying and selling used cars, I wanted to establish Spinny as the platform that would bridge the gap between the two stakeholders,” says Niraj.
He adds that the unique proposition that Spinny brought to the market was an analytically developed 200-point inspection checklist that assesses a car’s true condition and its right price. This works in two ways - one by helping the buyer make an informed decision about the purchase and second by helping sellers claim the right price for their cars.
According to a rough estimate, the used car market is valued at about $15 billion (GMV). The market is growing at 20-22 percent CAGR. A recent CRISIL study forecast the sales of used cars to reach around 8 million units by 2020. This will value the market size at around $45 billion by 2020.
Cartrade, Cardekho, Droom, Zoomo, 19miles, Truebil, GoZoomo and CredR, operating in the used car space.
Probably, riding high on such studies, the used car market observed a mushrooming of online platforms in the past few years. The pace which it witnessed growth, it faced consolidation with the same speed.
CarDekho acquired Times Internet-owned Zigwheels last year and Gaadi from Ibibo in the second half of 2014. Cartrade acquired CarWale, after buying Axel Springer’s 91-percent holding in the latter.