[The Turning Point] How used car retailing startup Spinny was started to weed out the nexus of independent consultants

The market for used cars is growing faster in India. Buying pre owned cars online has become easier than before, thanks to companies like Droom, Cartrade, Cars24, CarDekho, OLX , Quikr, and many others operating in the space. 

But when used car marketplace Spinny started up in 2015, it was still a new phenomenon, and its founders wanted to bring transparency and convenience to the used-car buying and selling experience.

Two months ago, Spinny turned a unicorn and said it observed a 57 percent rise in new-buyers, with November being the highest-grossing month across the country and that the pre-owned car market witnessed a tremendous hike in the digital purchase.

“Through the pandemic, Spinny has stayed focused on its home deliveries and home test drives… with our focus on the four pillars of Spinny assured designed to instate quality, standardisation, and the greatest degree of customer-centricity, people have come to trust a pre-owned car company and the life-long relationship with car buyers that we seek to develop," said Niraj Singh, Founder and CEO of Spinny.

"Our mission is to deliver a quality car to every household in the country and our numbers are reflective of progress in that direction,” he added.

The beginning

About seven to eight years ago, the used car market was still highly unstructured, with independent dealers and curbsiders comprising a large chunk of the market and charging heavy commissions.

For a layman, choosing from a pool of mint and lemon-coloured cars entails a good probability of adverse selection, Niraj pointed out while speaking to YourStory earlier.

Niraj realised there was a need to create a premium experience for people purchasing second-hand cars, and decided to create a simple and straightforward platform for the customer to gather information and buy a car. Spinny was born out of his desire to solve car ownership blues for young Indians.

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Niraj started the business with $500,000 from his own funds. Today, Spinny is a unicorn with more than $1.8 million funding, and is backed by investors like Abu Dhabi-based ADQ, Tiger Global Management, Avenir Growth, Feroze Dewan’s Arena Holdings, and cricketer Sachin Tendulkar.

To weed out the nexus of independent consultants, Niraj roped in Ramanshu Mahaur, Ganesh Pawar, and Mohit Gupta to start Spinny in 2015, with an aim to bring transparency and convenience to the used-car buying and selling experience. 

No ‘U’ turn

From 2015 to now, Spinny has been speeding up and became one of the go-to platforms for buying pre-owned cars in 2021. 

As a testimony of Spinny's commitment to transparency and quality, every car on the Spinny platform comes with a 200-point inspection checklist, five-day no questions asked money-back guarantee, and one-year after-sales warranty. 

Currently, Spinny has 36 car hubs that operate across 15 cities - Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Indore, and Coimbatore.

At present, Spinny has a team of over 4,000 people. The startup aims to increase its workforce to 5,000+ employees by the end of 2022 as it expands deeper into the Indian market.