Carsome becomes first Malaysian unicorn after $200m iCar acquisition deal

Automotive marketplace Carsome Group has agreed to acquire 19.9% of the Australia-listed iCar Asia from Catcha Group.

Carsome and Catcha have also made a joint proposal to iCar Asia’s independent directors to acquire the remaining 80.1% from iCar’s shareholders.

The total deal is estimated to be worth over US$200 million, Carsome said in a statement. It will boost the startup’s valuation to more than US$1 billion, making it breach unicorn levels.

Carsome co-founder and group CEO Eric Cheng / Photo credit: Carsome

Carsome operates online used-car buying and selling platforms across Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore. Meanwhile, iCar Asia is the leading automotive listings and content platform across those same markets.

Combined, the two firms would offer an integrated ecosystem to help dealers source, advertise, and sell cars and help consumers buy and sell vehicles. The acquisition would give Carsome an expanded suite of end-to-end solutions that covers the whole car-buying and selling value chain.

Carsome said the deal would cement its position as Southeast Asia’s most valuable digital automotive marketplace. The combined firm is reportedly looking to rake in US$1 billion in revenue for 2021, with roughly 100,000 cars transacted annually.

As part of the deal, Catcha Group will become a shareholder of the Carsome Group. Eric Cheng, co-founder and Group CEO of Carsome, will lead the Carsome Group as CEO. He will be working alongside Catcha Group co-founder and group CEO Patrick Grove to drive further growth of the combined firm.

“This is the first step toward consolidation to form the largest digital automotive group in terms of revenue, user base, largest live listing, and the best end-to-end fulfillment capability in the region,” said Cheng.

The move comes after Carsome rival Carro said it was eyeing a potential US IPO following its US$360 million series C round led by SoftBank, a deal that pushed the Singapore firm into unicorn status.

See Also: Carsome and Carro: A neck-and-neck race to transform how people buy cars