India used car marketplace Spinny raises $283m
Spinny has followed fellow Indian automotive marketplace Droom into unicorn territory, closing a $283 million Series F round at a valuation of $1.8 billion.
The round was led by led by Abu Dhabi-based ADQ, Tiger Global Management, and Avenir Growth. Feroz Dewan’s Arena Holdings and Think Investments also took part, while some early investors realized $33 million through secondary sales.
Spinny, which specializes in selling used cars, raised $108 million in Series D funding led by Tiger Global and US-based Avenir Growth in July at a valuation of less than $600 million. Later the same month, Droom completed the first tranche of a pre-IPO round, achieving a valuation of $1.2 billion.
Founded in 2015, Spinny has now raised more than $530 million to date. Blume Ventures led the company’s seed round in 2017, with Elevation Capital and Accel Partners joining for the Series A. Other backers include Fundamentum, General Catalyst, FJ Labs, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, and Kaiser Permanente Group Trust.
The company is modeled on US player Carvana. It has 23 hubs across 15 cities, enabling customers to view and test drive vehicles they identify online before making a final purchasing decision. Spinny claims to conduct rigorous checks on vehicles, and each sale includes a five-day no-questions-asked money-back guarantee.
Monthly sales have risen from 700 units in January 2020 to 1,300 in January 2021 and 2,000 in June of this year. Since then, they have risen to 3,000. On closing its Series D, the company said it wanted to reach an average of 4,000 sales per month by year-end.
“We set afoot to build Spinny with a customer-first approach – solving for lack of trust in car buying and selling experience, with a highly personalized and detail-oriented approach. Leveraging technology, our focus is to further strengthen our quality and experience control capabilities,” said Niraj Singh, the company’s co-founder and CEO, in a statement cited by local media.
Approximately 40 Indian start-ups have achieved unicorn status this year, with real estate marketplace NoBroker and financial technology provider Slice among the most recent additions. In 2020, only 11 companies reached that landmark.
More on South Asia
Latest News
Asian GPs slow implementation of ESG policies - survey
Asia-based private equity firms are assigning more dedicated resources to environment, social, and governance (ESG) programmes, but policy changes have slowed in the past 12 months, in part due to concerns raised internally and by LPs, according to a...
Singapore fintech start-up LXA gets $10m seed round
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has led a USD 10m seed round for Singapore’s LXA, a financial technology start-up launched by a former Asia senior executive at The Blackstone Group.
India's InCred announces $60m round, claims unicorn status
Indian non-bank lender InCred Financial Services said it has received INR 5bn (USD 60m) at a valuation of at least USD 1bn from unnamed investors including “a global private equity fund.”
Insight leads $50m round for Australia's Roller
Insight Partners has led a USD 50m round for Australia’s Roller, a venue management software provider specializing in family fun parks.