Droom raises $20 mn from IAM, others

Online automobile e-commerce platform Droom has raised USD 20 million (nearly Rs 130 crore) in a round led by Integrated Asset Management (IAM).
The fifth round of funding saw participation from all the existing institutional investors -- Lightbox, Beenos, Digital Garage and Beenext.
The company has so far raised USD 65 million, including from the latest instalment.
"The funds will be used to strengthen the technology platform, tech-focussed acquisitions and strengthen Droom's brand portfolio," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told reporters here.
He, however, declined to comment on the valuation of the company.
Last year, Droom raised nearly Rs 200 crore from Beenext and Digital Garage. Prior to that, it had raised seed funding of USD 1.5 million and USD 4 million in May and October 2014, respectively, followed by Series A round of Rs 100 crore in June 2015.

Droom expects to clock Rs 175 crore in revenue by March 2018 and make profit by the middle of the next year.

The company is also looking at listing on Nasdaq by the middle of 2019 and by then, Droom's GMV will touch about USD 2.5 billion, Aggarwal said.
GMV is a term used in online retailing to indicate the gross merchandise value of products sold through the marketplace over a certain period of time. It is often used as a reference by start-ups to showcase growth potential of the company and therefore, raise funds from investors.
However, investors are now more attentive towards factors like path to profitability and scalable business models rather than just GMV.