[Funding alert] CARS24 raises $450M, at a valuation of $1.84B

The ecommerce platform for pre-owned vehicles, Cars24, has raised a total of $450 million at the valuation of $1.84 billion. The startup raised $320 million in Series F equity, and $110 million debt from diversified financial institutions. 

The company stated that the Series F equity round was led by DST Global, Falcon Edge, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, along with participation from Tencent and existing investors Moore Strategic Ventures and Exor Seeds. 

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CARS24 aims to now expand its global presence as well as further build its cars, bikes, and financing business in India, while continuing to invest in technology that delivers the best customer experience possible.

Speaking on the development, Vikram Chopra, Co-founder and CEO, CARS24 said in the press statement, “Just last month, we celebrated our six successful years of operations and we are incredibly excited to share that CARS24 has officially closed its largest round of funding to date. Traditionally, car selling or buying have been a tiresome process, and only 2 of 100 people own cars in India. However, over the last six years, we have been working continuously towards fulfilling the dreams of many Indians to own a car by transforming the customer's journey- 'the CARS24 way' that is hassle-free, safe and transparent. With this investment, we will continue to penetrate into existing car, bikes and financing business in India while venturing into new overseas geographies this year.”

The company has already sold over 1000 cars in the UAE since the launch of its operations in April this year. CARS24 also officially announced its launch with a new campaign last week in Australia. 

Rahul Mehta, Managing Partner at DST Global said, “CARS24 is at the forefront of transforming the way consumers buy and sell cars by providing a unique end-to-end digital shopping and transaction experience. They have emerged as the undisputed leader in the used car space in India and early traction in international markets is exceeding expectations. We love backing founders who are bold and ambitious thinkers and couldn’t be more excited to enter the second innings of our long-lasting partnership with CARS24.”

Founded in 2015, CARS24 aims to transform the way consumers buy and sell cars by leveraging technology at every leg of the consumer journey to solve genuine pain points and deliver a seamless experience. 

Navroz D. Udwadia, Co-founder of Falcon Edge Capital said, “We have studied used car platforms globally and are struck by the similarities we see between CARS24 and analogous businesses that have scaled successfully. CARS24 has cemented its first-mover advantage by building wide-ranging supply side moats, which in turn drive demand liquidity on the platform. In positioning itself as a buying and selling solution for consumers, CARS24 drives immense top-of-mind recall. It is rare to find a business as focused on the consumer experience and as driven to ensure it is outstanding via the use of data science and technology. Finally, we are deeply impressed by the founders’ leadership, and are thrilled to back them as they transform the used car industry in India and scale internationally across MENA and SE Asia." 

CARS24 claims to have close to 90 percent of the online used car segment, and has clocked more than 13M monthly traffic and over 4 lakh transactions until now.

Munish Varma, Managing Partner, SoftBank Investment Advisers said, “CARS24 is building a data-enabled tech platform that is organising the fragmented used car market in India. We have been closely tracking its approach and efforts that have disrupted the used car retailing in India.”

Sumer Juneja, Partner, SoftBank Investment Advisers added, “We believe CARS24 is enhancing the customer experience in the used car industry with its sharp focus on technology. We will continue to support this growth given our expertise in e-commerce businesses across markets”.