Online used car retailing platform Spinny raises $65 mn in funding round

Spinny, an online platform for selling pre-owned cars, has raised $65 million in a funding round, led by Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm General Catalyst

Spinny, an online platform for selling pre-owned cars, has raised USD 65 million in a funding round, led by Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm General Catalyst.

The Series C funding round saw participation from new investors including Feroz Dewan's Arena Holdings, and Think Investments.

In addition, existing investors Elevation Partners (previously SAIF Partners) and the Fundamentum Partnership, among others, also participated in the funding round, Spinny said in a release.

The fresh capital raised will be used for expanding into new markets, strengthening technology, product capabilities, launching new business categories, and building teams across functions, among others, it said.

A portion of the proceeds from the round will also be utilized to provide exits to few seed and pre-seed stage investors of the company, Spinny said. "Spinny announces the closure of USD 65 million Series C funding round from new and existing investors," the platform said, adding that the additional capital infusion takes the overall funds raised by Spinny till date to more than USD 120 million.

In March last year, the company had raised USD 43.7 million in a Series B financing round from a host of investors led by Fundamentum Partnership, a growth capital fund backed by Nandan Nilekani and Sanjeev Aggarwal.

Backed by Elevation Partners and Accel Partners, the Gurugram-based platform is currently present across eight cities in the country with four of them -- Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad -- coming up this January only.

"The proceeds from the new round of funding will enable us to further strengthen our quality and experience control capabilities and to experiment and build new product categories, said Niraj Singh, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Spinny.

The US-based venture capital firm General Catalyst, focused on early stage andgrowth investment, was the early backer of Airbnb, Stripe, Snapchat, Vroom, Cazoo, among others, as well.

"The used car market in India is huge and ripe for reinvention. We believe Spinny is uniquely positioned to tap this opportunity. As long time investors, we've been impressed by how Spinny is reinventing every part of the buying process," said Adam Valkin, General Partner, General Catalyst.

While the auto market saw a dip in sales volumes during the COVID-19 lockdown, the lifting of the lockdown restrictions saw a major boost in car sales due to a change in personal transport preferences, Spinny said.

The platform has constantly added multiple industry-first initiatives in the last 12months, the company said, adding in August last year, Spinny acquired Mumbai-headquartered Truebil to solidify its position in the Indian used-car market, it said.

"We are privileged to be their early partners and excited to double down in this round," said Mukul Arora, Partner, Elevation Capital.

Fundamentum Partnership (FP) was happy at the progress of Spinny, in which it first time invested a year ago, and therefore decided to re-invest along with new investors in Series C, said Ashish Kumar. Partner, FP.

Founded by IIT-Delhi alumni Niraj Singh, former Flipkart director Mohit Gupta and Ramanshu Mahaur (IIT-Delhi alumni and formerly from -Adobe), Spinnyhas currently 16 car hubs that operate across eight cities.