Droom, which also plans to develop its Machine Learning and AI capabilities, raised funding from Toyota, Digital Garage and existing investors

Droom, a mobile-first marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles including aeroplanes in India, has secured US$30 million in Series D funding, led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation, a member of automobile giant Toyota Group, and co-led by Japanese tech company Digital Garage.

Ellison Investments, an Asia-based investment manager, besides many of Droom’s existing investors and a number of prominent institutional investors and family offices from China, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, also co-invested in this round.

The newly-raised capital will be used to further scale Droom’s operations in India as well as to expand its international presence. The company will also invest heavily in further developing its Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence capabilities.

Droom also signed an MoU with Toyota Tsusho to expand into Southeast Asia.

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Droom was founded by Sandeep Aggarwal, who is also co-founder and former CEO of ShopClues, an e-commerce unicorn in India. Droom is an online marketplace for buying and selling new and used automobiles. It has four marketplace formats — B2C, C2C, C2B and B2B, and three pricing formats — fixed price, best offer and auction. The platform offers wide range of categories from bicycle to plane and all automobile services such as warranty, RSA, insurance and auto loan.

Over the past three years, Droom claims to have acquired 70 per cent of the online automobile market share in India, generating close to US$700 million in gross revenue and US$15 million in net revenue with the listed GMV of US$3.5 billion. Droom also boasts of having nearly 250,000 auto dealers in more than 500 cities across India on its platform and 27.3 million monthly visitors.

The company aims to double its gross merchandise value to US$1.4 billion by end of 2018 and US$3.5 billion by 2019. It plans to hit IPO by the end of 2019.

Droom is a Singapore holding company with its subsidiary in India and US.

To date, Droom has raised about US$95 million over six rounds of funding. This includes a US$20 million Series C fundraise, led by Integrated Asset Management in July last year and a Series B round in June 2016. The firm’s other backers include Lightbox, Beenext, and Beenos.

 

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