India's CarDekho secures $110m Series C

Amit Jain, CEO and co-founder of CarDekho, told Press Trust of India that the round took the company's total funding to $185 million. The round reportedly values the business at $400-500 million.

CapitalG – then known as Google Capital – and Hillhouse invested an undisclosed sum in CarDekho in March 2016. Hillhouse led a $50 million Series B round for the company a year earlier. It included participation from Tybourne Capital and Sequoia. The latter invested $15 million in the company in 2013. CarDekho also lists HDFC Bank, Ratan Tata, and Times Internet among its backers.

Launched in 2008 by GinarSoft, CarDekho is an information portal featuring car reviews, vehicle specifications and pricing, as well as comparisons with other brands and models. It works directly with more than eight car and motorcycle manufacturers – accounting for 15-30% of their combined annual sales – and with 5,000 dealerships nationwide. In addition, the company collaborates with more than 10 financial institutions to provide used car financing.

GinarSoft has expanded into Southeast Asia through Zigwheels in the Philippines and Malaysia and Oto in Indonesia. Zigwheels also has a presence in the United Arab Emirates.

"Our used cars engine has scaled up tremendously and has also enabled us to incubate allied businesses like insurance and finance as they are one of the largest opportunities ahead of us," Jain said. He expects the new capital to go toward expanding these verticals, noting that they are underpenetrated and offer huge potential in terms of scaling up. 

CarDekho's competitors include CarTrade, which is backed by the likes of Temasek Holdings and Warburg Pincus. It has a similar suite of product offerings. Then there are used car trading specialists such as Droom, Cars24, and Mahindra First Choice Wheels. All three have raised private funding, with Cars24 closing a $50 million round last July led by Sequoia.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Technology
• Consumer
• Expansion
• India
• Sequoia Capital
• Hillhouse Capital Management
• Google
• Axis private equity
• TMT
• automobiles
• Growth capital