GirnarSoft, parent company of online auto market place CarDekho, has scooped up $110 million (Rs 770 crore) from existing investors Sequoia Capital and others. The other investors who participated in this round included CapitalG (investment arm of Google), China’s Hillhouse Capital & new investor Axis Bank.
The funding marks the comeback of CarDekho in the funding game after hiatus of almost two years, with its last funding taking place way back in 2016. Reports about the Jaipur based firm seeking fresh funding round had been going around since last month.
Now that the long hiatus has finally broken, GirnarSoft’s flagship company’s total funding has now amassed to $185 million. As for the question of how the company plans to utilize this latest capital infusion then it likely to use them to support its two verticals – insurance and financing businesses. It may also use the capital to boost its ‘used car’ segment.
Amit Jain, CEO of GirnarSoft, claims that there is still a lot of room for insurance business to grow.
“Eighty percent of all people buying a car in India are researching on one of our websites. The opportunity lies in extending formal credit and insurance coverage to the new-to-formal economy population and will continue to be a focus area for us,” said Amit Jain.
CarDekho is not pinning hopes on insurance & financing and used car segments without any reasons. These two verticals have played a critical role in consolidating company’s balance sheet in FY18. The Jaipur headquartered firm recently claimed that in FY18 it has managed to achieve 40% increase in revenue to reach Rs 160 crore and a significant reduction in losses from Rs 135 crore to Rs 70 crore.
CarDekho competes with Cars24, which is also backed by Sequoia Capital.
