Cars24, a leading e-commerce platform for pre-owned vehicles, announced on Monday the closing of a $450-million round of funding from diversified financial institutions, including Soft Bank, Tencent and DST Global.

The funding was a mix of equity and debt with $340 million in equity and $110 million in debt.

Leading investors

The equity funding was led by DST Global, Falcon Edge and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 along with Tencent and existing investors Moore Strategic Ventures and Exor Seeds.

According to a press release, Cars24 will use this investment to expand its global presence and build its cars, bikes and financing business, while continuing to invest in technology that delivers the best customer experience.

Speaking on the development, Vikram Chopra, Co-founder and CEO, Cars24, said, “Just last month, we celebrated our six successful years of operations and we are excited to share that Cars24 has officially closed its largest round of funding to date. Traditionally, car selling or buying has been a tiresome process, and only 2 of 100 people own cars in India. However, over the last six years, we have been working towards fulfilling the dreams of many Indians to own a car by transforming the customer’s journey- ‘the Cars24 way’. 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.”

Overseas venture

The funding comes just months after Cars24’s expansion into the UAE and Australian markets. The company has already sold over 1,000 cars in the UAE since the launch of its operations in April. 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 are excited to enter the second innings of our long-lasting partnership with Cars24.”

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 tracking its approach and efforts that have disrupted the used car retailing in India.” Cars24 is the market leader in the online used car segment with over 90 per cent market share and has clocked more than 13 million monthly traffic and over 4 lakh transactions to date.

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