Used car marketplace Cars24 has raised as much as Dream11 this year to set up operation overseas

• The company had raised $450 million in September 2021 and another $400 million now.
• Cars24 has also increased its valuation from $1.8 billion to $3.3 billion in the last three months.
• The company plans to go for an IPO in the next 18-24 months, Cars24 India CEO told Business Insider.

Cars24 has raised $850 million in 2021, which is as much as the capital raised by Dream11 this year. Initial public offering (IPO)-bound PineLabs has raised $700 million this year, while ShareChat has raised $640 million. The Gurugram-based startup has also increased its valuation from $1.8 billion to $3.3 billion in the last three months, Cars24 has said.

The latest round of fundraising by the Gurugram-based used car marketplace was a $400 million tranche led by Alpha Wave Global (formerly known as Falcon Edge Capital). Nearly $300 million of this capital was raised through equity, while the rest $100 million was debt. Prior to this, the company had raised $450 million in September 2021.

Meanwhile, its peer CarTrade Tech Limited has lost 41% of its value since its listing in September 2021 [check] and its market value has fallen to ₹4,120 crore ($54 million). Here’s an explainer why the listed CarTrade is trailing so far behind Cars24, which is also working towards an IPO.

Cars24 will use the recently-raised capital to fuel its brand’s global expansion in the Middle East, Australia and Southeast Asia. Besides this, it also aims to further strengthen its foothold in India.

“These markets are really a function of supply and demand. It was about, is there demand for used cars? Is it a crowded space in terms of players already in the use of space? And, we basically apply those filters to identify markets that we'd like to go up,” chief executive (CEO) of Cars24 India, Kunal Mundra, had previously told Business Insider.

Vikram Chopra, global CEO of Cars24, highlighted that Cars24 has some aggressive plans for next year.

Founded by Vikram Chopra, Gajendra Jangid, Ruchit Agarwal and Mehul Agrawal, Cars24 allows customers to sell their old cars as well as bikes through their omnichannel network. A consumer can simply book an appointment with any of the Cars24 branches, visit the branch and sell a car in a single visit. The branches are available across 106 cities in India — including Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Meerut.

It competes with other automobile ecommerce platforms like publicly listed-CarTrade and private companies like Droom and CarDekho, which are valued over a billion dollars.

While Droom is going for an initial public offering (IPO), Cars24 plans to wait another 18-24 months. “In my mind, an IPO is always a means to an end, it is not an end by itself. The end goal for us is to really build the most incredible auto ecommerce company in the world. I think when the time is right, when we feel that it's the right time to go down that route, we'll look at it. That's kind of it's not a stake in the ground that we put,” Mundra said.

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