CarDekho bags fresh $50 million funding, speeds race with CarTrade

Auto classifieds portal CarDekho raised US$50 million in a funding round led by Chinese funds Hillhouse Capital and Tybourne Capital, The Economic Times reported.

Sequoia Capital, which had picked up a 20 percent stake in the company when it invested US$15 million in 2013, also participated in this latest round.

CarDekho is one of India’s leading online marketplaces for buyers and sellers of new and used vehicles. The portal also has car news, photos and video galleries, vehicle specifications, and so on. It was founded in March 2008 by IT company Girnar Software, which now has several other similar ventures, including BikeDekho, PriceDekho, and MobileDekho. (“Dekho” means “see” in Hindi.) Last year, CarDekho acquired auto portal Gaadi owned by the Ibibo group.

In recent years, India’s used car market has been growing fast, riding on the backs of portals like CarTrade and CarDekho, as well as the more generalized OLX. Most of these sites let individual sellers post ads for free. OLX, for instance, has almost half a million ads for used cars.

The fresh infusion of funds into CarDekho comes close on the heels of its main rival CarTrade’s US$30 million funding round led by private equity fund Warburg Pincus, Canaan Partners, and Tiger Global.

(Source: The Economic Times)

See: Classifieds portal Quikr gets $60M in fresh ammunition to take on OLX