Used car marketplace Spinny raises $131 million in fresh funding led by Accel Leaders Fund

Spinny co-founder Niraj Singh did not respond to Moneycontrol’s queries.

This is the largest funding round a used-car marketplace startup has raised since the funding influx of 2021, where Indian startups raised a record-breaking amount of capital. This included large rounds raised by Spinny, Cardekho, Cars24, and Droom raised that year, which pushed their valuations past the $1 billion mark.

Spinny achieved its coveted unicorn status after raising a massive $283 million in December 2021 from investors such as Abu Dhabi’s ADQ, and existing backers Tiger Global Management and Avenir Growth, pushing its valuation to $1.8 billion.

To date, the company has raised as much as $521 million in funding across 13 rounds and is currently valued at $1.67 billion, as per market intelligence platform Tracxn.

However, used-car marketplace startups have since faced challenges in scaling as funding taps have dried up, partly due to the stiff competition from the fragmented unorganised markets.

While players like CarDekho has exited the space, others like Cars24 and Spinny have been looking at alternative ways to grow revenue streams and add more services, Moneycontrol reported earlier.

In FY24, Spinny’s revenue from operations increased 14 percent to Rs 3,725 crore from Rs 3,260 crore in the previous year, after the company merged its budget and luxury car offerings – Truebil and Spinny Max. It also laid off around 300 employees and cut back on its marketing costs, resulting in losses declining by 28 percent year-on-year to Rs 590 crore.

The company has also recently acquired Haymarket SAC’s automotive titles in India, including brands like Autocar India, Autocar Professional, and What Car? India.

In FY23, a total of 51 lakh used cars were sold in India and the industry was worth $34 billion. From there, the sector is expected to grow to $73 billion and sell 1.09 crore used cars by FY28, according to the latest Indian Blue Book (IBB) report by 'car&bike' and 'Das WeltAuto by Volkswagen'.