Truebil is a curated marketplace that aims to make the process of buying and selling pre-owned automobiles easy by posting pictures and detailed inspection report of the car

India has been a gold mine for Chinese investors for the past three to four years. From Alibaba to Tencent, many leading Chinese VCs have poured big dollars into various Indian tech startups, such as Paytm and Hike. A stagnant market, coupled with the dwindling youth population, has prompted Chinese investors to look into their neighbourhood for new opportunities.

Today, yet another VC fund has made an entry into India. Shunwei Capital, a Beijing-headquartered fund with under US$2 billion assets under management, has invested in Truebil, a curated online marketplace for pre-owned cars in India.

Shunwei injected US$3 million into the Mumbai-based startup, which has previously raised US$5.5 million in Series A round, led by Kalaari Capital, Inventus Capital, Kae Capital, and Tekton Ventures.

With rapid expansion plans on the cards, Truebil plans to utilise the fresh funding to intensify its operations, invest in skill development, and bolster the technological infrastructure.

Also Read: Move over China. India takes centre stage for VCs

Talking about the growth plans, Suraj Kalwani, Co-founder and CEO, Truebil said, “We will be using the proceeds of this recently-closed round of funding primarily towards skill development and augmenting the technological infrastructure of the company. Further, by associating with Shunwei Capital, we will be able to gain invaluable insights which will certainly be a big boost for our overall vision for the growth and expansion of Truebil.”

Incepted on March 2015, Truebil aims to make the process of buying and selling pre-owned automobiles easy by posting pictures and detailed inspection report of the car on its platform, while the buyers can shortlist the cars online and avail end-to-end services of the entire buying process. The objective of the transaction-centric platform is to eliminate hassle and inefficiency caused during car purchases from the used automobile ecosystem and ensures absolute transparency to the buyers.

In 2016, the company introduced a full-stack model, Truebil Direct, that maintains inventory by buying the used cars upfront from the sellers and getting them refurbished before listing them on its marketplace for the premium buyers. It also runs a B2C dealer digitisation platform called Truebil Privilege Partner.

The startup recently launched services in Bangalore.

In the past, Truebil had raised seed fund of US$500,000 from Kae Capital and angel investor Anupam Mittal, Founder and CEO of People Group.

Tuck Lye Koh, CEO and Founding Partner, Shunwei Capital, said, “The Indian startup landscape has exhibited exceptional growth across industries and this trend is likely to continue as the focus shifts on sustainability and unit economics. For our debut investment in this vibrant market, we were looking to join hands with a venture that has a robust business model, is catering to a real consumer need and is backed by a superior team and tech infrastructure. Truebil fits the bill perfectly and we are certain that with the freshly infused capital, the company will build on its expertise and widen the consumer base it reaches out to with its dynamic offerings.”

Shunwei Capital was founded in 2011 by Jun Lei and Tuck Lye KOH and manages over US$2 billion across five funds. Shunwei’s key focus is mobile internet and IoT.

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