Ex-Housing exec gets funding to sell pre-owned cars in India

After working for a year at Indian real estate portal Housing, Suraj Kalwani decided to buy himself a stylish car. But with a budget of US$5,500, it was not possible to buy a sedan. So Kalwani started exploring the used car market, and realized many of the deals were actually quite affordable.

But the entire process of shortlisting, inspecting, test driving, and undergoing legal proceedings was cumbersome for the busy young professional. The lack of a one-stop solution for used cars motivated him to take the leap and build one himself.

Hence, Truebil was born, and today it announced the raising of US$500,000 in seed funding from early stage venture capital firm Kae Capital and angel investor Anupam Mittal.

Here’s how the Mumbai-based startup helps buy and sell used cars. The startup’s auto engineers take photographs and evaluate the cars before listing them on the portal. “Photos and inspection report help the buyer make an informed decision,” says Kalwani.

The three-month-old marketplace also provides services like free vehicle buying consultation including valuation, paper transfer, loan assistance, insurance support, and car spa.

“The world is moving towards full-stack solutions unlike the Indian pre-owned cars market, which has not seen innovation in decades. Truebil is poised to crack that,” says Mittal.

Truebil lists more than 1,0000 cars and has sold 156 to date (EDIT: an earlier version of this story said Truebil listed 400 and sold 40. That figure has been corrected). The startup says \the average time a person spends buying a car is five days, and and the average number of physical visits to a dealership is 1.2.

The company plans to utilize this investment to upgrade its technology and expand its reach.

Truebil competes with heavily funded auto classified players like CarTrade and CarDekho. However none of these have auto engineers to inspect used cars. It also competes with classified listing portals like Quickr and OLX.