Carsome raised $290 M in Series E funding from Qatar sovereign fund & SeaTown
Carsome, a Malaysian vehicle e-commerce unicorn, has raised US $290 million in a Series E fundraising round, valuing the company at over US $1.7 billion.
Qatar Investment Authority (a Qatari sovereign wealth fund), 65 Equity Partners (owned by Temasek), and Seatown Private Capital Master Fund co-led the round (a closed-end PE fund managed by SeaTown Holdings).
Mediatek, Sunway, Gokongwei Group, YTL Group, and Taiwan Mobil all contributed to the venture.
Carsome plans to spend the freshly generated capital in people, product, technology, data capabilities, infrastructure, and regional expansion of its retail brand, Carsome Certified, in significant markets across Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand.
Carsome, founded in 2015 by CEO Eric Cheng and Teoh Jiun Ee, aspires to digitise Southeast Asia’s used vehicle sector by changing the automobile purchasing and selling experience with end-to-end solutions, which include everything from car inspection to ownership transfer to finance.
It has made advances into Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore since its establishment.
According to the firm, it works with over 8,000 dealers, transacts over 100,000 automobiles each year, and employs over 1,700 people across all of its locations.
Carsome has established at least seven B2C retail centres, known as Carsome Experience Centers, in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, in order to transition from a consumer-to-business (C2B) to a consumer-to-consumer (B2C) model by 2021.
Carsome Certified, which will be available in August 2020, is one of the company’s major breakthroughs. The retail brand sells high-quality secondhand automobiles that have undergone a thorough check to verify that they are free of significant accidents, frame, fire, or flood damage. Customers may look at the inside and outside of the car, get a list of existing flaws and a professional reconditioning assessment, and schedule a test drive through the website.
Carsome has also launched a number of auto-financing options for vehicle purchasers and used car dealers, particularly for graduates who have trouble getting loans from traditional banks.
Following its purchase of iCar Asia in July 2021, Carsome became a unicorn. It stated in September that it will raise an additional $200 million in a Series D2 round, which would be supplemented by additional funding.
It has teamed up with Grab to create the “Own Your Ride” campaign, which will benefit over 100,000 Grab drivers and delivery partners in Malaysia when they purchase Carsome Certified vehicles. The campaign is scheduled to last until April 2022.
