Droom Raises $30M in Series D Led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation

Droom, Gurugram-based transactional platform for automobile, has recently raised $30 million in Series D, led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation (member Toyota Group) and co-led by Digital Garage of Japan. They are joined by Ellison Investments, an Asia-based investment manager, as well as many existing investors and a number of prominent institutional investors and family offices from China, Hong Kong and SE Asia.

The newly raised funds will be used to further strengthen Droom’s domination in the online automobiles marketplace segment in India, where it currently owns nearly 70% market share, as well as to make its ecosystem service tools more scalable and to expand its international presence. The tech-led platform will also invest heavily in further developing its Machine learning and AI capabilities and build 100x larger scale. 

Droom also signed an MOU with Toyota Tsusho Corporation to expand internationally in SE Asia, reinforcing its global attractiveness in the markets that are characterized by trust deficit, high cost of capita, highly fragmented seller base, and loose rules & regulations.

In the past three years, it has acquired 70% of the online automobile market share in India, generating close to $700 million in gross revenue and $15 million in net revenue with the listed GMV of $3.5 bn. Droom has also proved its position as largest online automobile marketplace in India with close to 250k 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 $1.4 bn by end of 2018 and $3.5 bn by 2019. The company plans to go for an IPO by end of 2019.

Speaking on the development, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Droom, said, “Droom has seen tremendous growth over the past three and half years in terms of adoption by buyers/sellers, number of categories and listings, geographical presence, and GMV/transactions.  It has irrevocably changed how automobiles are bought and sold online by creating robust tech and AI bases Ecosystem services tools fit for the 21st century. These tools focus on elements such as trust, transparency, pricing, and convenience. We are delighted to have a major investor like Toyota Tsusho Corporation backing us in this round. This partnership will play a major role in Droom’s journey ahead by helping us realise our growth potential, both in India and internationally. We are fortunate to have long standing support of Lightbox, Beenext and Beenos for believing in us very early on and supporting us relentlessly last 4 years.  On the backdrop of Droom’s upcoming international expansion, we are excited to partner with Ellison Investments for helping us expand our investors base in Asia.”

Toyota Tsusho Corporation, said, “We were impressed that Droom has rapidly established its leadership position as the largest online marketplace to buy and sell automobiles in India. Sandeep is an exceptional and visionary founder and Droom also has solid management team. We and Droom are sharing the same vision, which is bringing trust and transparency to the transactions of automobiles. We believe that this partnership contributes the establishment of highly transparent transaction of automotive the wholesome development of auto market of any developing countries, by combining Droom’s technologically advanced platform and our various automotive business experience of all over the world.

Including this latest round, Droom has raised a total funding of $93 million since its inception. The company raised $20 million Series C funding in July 2017, $25 million Series B funding in June 2016, $16 million Series A funding in July 2015 and $2 million in Seed round in June 2014. 

In the automobile sector, Droom competes with the likes of Pitstop & Cartisan among others.

In April 2018, Pitstop raised $1.6 million in a Pre-Series A funding round from its existing investors Blume Ventures and Singapore-based Goldbell Group and in March, it also acquired Noida-based startup MotorWhiz, which offers mobile solutions for car services and repair jobs, in a part cash-part stock deal. Bengaluru-based Cartisan is also seed-funded by cricketer Yuvraj Singh through the YouWeCan ventures.

SAIF Partners backed car servicing platform Bumper has shut down its operations recently as it could not raise enough capital and there was not enough traction from users, according to a TechCircle report.