Indian eCommerce Used Car Marketplace Raises $14M

Truebil, an online marketplace to buy and sell second-hand cars, has raised $14 million in a Series B round led by Japanese investor Joe Hirao, the founder of ZIGExN.

Launched in 2015, Mumbai-based Truebil was founded by former Housing.com employees Suraj Kalwani, Ravi Chirania, Shubh Bansal, Rakesh Raman and Shanu Vivek, along with former Fab.com executive Ritesh Pandey and former Rio Tinto official Himanshu Singhal. The online marketplace focuses on peer-to-peer sales of cars in Indian cities like Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi, and also offers services such as free inspection, valuation, quick sell guarantee, vehicle buying consulting, smooth paper transfer, loan assistance, insurance and more.

“We are currently selling over 600 cars per month — and with our strong tech backbone, we are making aggressive strides towards becoming the numero uno used car retailer platform in India,” Kalwani, chief executive of Truebil, said, according to VC Circle.

This latest round of funding included participation from existing investors Kalaari, Inventus, Kae, Shunwei, and Tekton.

“We will be using these funds to expand the business in other geographies and strengthen our technology stack which is the backbone of the consumer-focused retail business,” said Truebil co-founder Shubh Bansal, according to Deal Street Asia.

With this latest round, Truebil has currently raised a total of $22.5 million, with $3 million received in a follow-on Series A round from Shunwei in February 2017. That followed its initial Series A in early 2016, which raised $5.5 million  from Kalaari Capital, Inventus Capital and San Francisco-based Tekton Ventures and existing investor Kae Capital.

Truebil isn’t the only car marketplace that has caught Hirao’s attention. His family office led a $30 million funding round last year in Truebil’s rival Droom, founded by Sandeep Aggarwal, founder at ShopClues. That money came a few months after the startup raised another $30 million in its Series D round, led by Japanese firms Toyota Tsusho Corporation and Digital Garage.