BENGALURU (Reuters) – Indian used-car platform Cars24 said on Monday it has raised $450 million from investors including SoftBank Group Corp’s Vision Fund 2, nearly doubling its valuation to $1.84 billion.
The fund raise included a $340 mln Series F equity round featuring investments from Vision Fund 2, Tencent Holdings Ltd and DST Global, Cars24 said, along with $110 million in debt from financial institutions.
CARS24 was founded in 2015 and dominates over 90% of India’s online used-car marketplace, with operations across more than 130 cities in India.
“With this investment, we will continue to penetrate into existing car, bikes and financing business in India while venturing into new overseas geographies this year,” Vikram Chopra, CARS24 co-founder and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 counts Indian food delivery startup Swiggy in its portfolio of internet-based consumer firms while Tencent has invested in Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart.
(Reporting by Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)