Sequoia is more likely to take part within the upcoming Series E funding
The Gurugram-based auto market had final raised $70 Mn in Series D funding at a valuation of $725 Mn
CarDekho lately employed 5 VPs to guide its engineering, expertise and product improvement groups
Gurugram-based car market CarDekho is ready to affix India’s fast-increasing bandwagon of unicorns. According to reports, the startup is in talks with buyers to boost a minimal of $150 Mn in Series E funding that may assist flip the startup right into a unicorn.
While it’s not clear who will lead the funding, sources advised Inc42 that Sequoia is more likely to take part within the funding spherical.
Backed by the likes of Sequoia Capital, HDFC Bank, Hillhouse Group and Ping An Global Voyager, Cardekho has to this point raised $247.5 Mn in funding. The firm had final raised $70 Mn in Series D funding led by Hong Kong-based Ping An Global Voyager in 2019. Post Series D funding the autotech startup was valued at $725 Mn.
Earlier, in March this yr, CarDekho had launched UPLINK, a sophisticated and compact GPS Vehicle Tracking System powered by a compact plug-and-play system that may be linked to any car permitting customers to realize real-time entry to a bunch of data equivalent to stay monitoring, rash driving alerts, journeys historical past, utilization stats, and extra.
Despite Covid having adversely impacted the car sector, cofounder Amit Jain told a information platform that the corporate has obtained an excellent response (on its on-line platform). The pandemic has solely helped pace up the adoption of this mannequin.
According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the Indian car business registered damaging progress in gross sales of all car classes in FY21 (2.24% decline in gross sales of passenger autos, 13.19% fall in gross sales of two-wheelers, 20.77% fall in gross sales of business autos, and 66.06% fall in gross sales of three-wheelers).
Regardless of the auto business’s total efficiency, CarDekho group has been engaged on the product entrance and lately hired 5 VPs to guide its engineering, expertise, and product improvement groups.
While ex-Walmart govt Sandeep Singh and ex-Reliance Jio VP of engineering Mayank Kapoor have been appointed as vice presidents of engineering, Manjeet Dahiya, who was earlier main ML and knowledge science at Airtel’s WYNK was appointed because the VP of synthetic intelligence, machine studying and knowledge sciences.
With the most recent funding, CarDekho can be India’s 56th Unicorn and fifteenth startup to enter the Unicorn membership this yr. In 2018, Inc42 predicted that India may have 100 unicorns by 2025, however trying on the present panorama with 52 startups within the membership already (with 10 unicorns added in first 4 months of 2021) it’s anticipated that India might cross this quantity (100 unicorns) by 2023.
