Carsome Successfully Completes Series D Funding

The latest Series D round will further support potential merger and acquisition opportunities to acquire ancillary capabilities and consolidate Carsome's supply chain.

FREMONT, CA: Carsome, Southeast Asia's largest integrated car e-commerce platform, completes its Series D fundraising. The US$30 million round, the largest of all-equity financings in Southeast Asia's online automotive sector, was led by Asia Partners and was joined by existing Carsome investors Burda Principal Investments and Ondine Capital. Carsome will use this capital to strengthen its existing regional leadership in consumer-to-business (C2B) used car e-commerce and accelerate its already successful new offering in the business-to-consumer (B2C) segment. The company looks forward to rolling out Southeast Asia's first-ever C2B and B2C integrated e-commerce platform for used cars, a significantly superior new retail experience.

A combination of executive leadership and a robust business model positions the company for future growth. Carsome's integrated approach offers a one-stop solution to used car buyers and sellers, which is impressive. Asia Partners sees that this will be the way forward for the used car industry, and the company looks forward to further scale the business across the region.

Since its founding, Carsome has provided an impressive record of accomplishments, evolving to strength. Carsome recorded the highest revenue quarter in Q3 2020, doubling its revenue from the pre-pandemic time. In November 2020, Carsome celebrated its 100,000th car sold via its platform – a significant milestone achieved within five years of founding. Carsome has also attained operational profitability as of October, ahead of earlier projections. It has built a defensible, scalable, and profitable business with very healthy unit economics attributed to both gross margin growth and steady improvements in productivity and conversion metrics.

Vital to Carsome's success has been its commitment to rigorous car inspections, providing Carsome-inspected and certified cars directly to customers, building a reservoir of consumer trust and brand equity in a vital but historically complex industry. Every car that transacts on the Carsome platform goes through a 175-point inspection, and every Carsome car purchase is backed up with an extended warranty and a money-back guarantee. Carsome's track record of digitizing a traditionally offline and fragmented industry and its resilience in the face of the global pandemic were key factors in several existing investors' decisions to reinvest in the Series D round.