Mumbai: Spinny, a full stack used car retailing platform in India, announces the closure of the USD 65 Mn Series C funding round from new and existing investors. The round was led by silicon valley based venture capital firm General Catalyst – early backers of Airbnb, Stripe, Snapchat, Vroom, Cazoo, etc. Other new investors in the round include Feroz Dewan’s Arena Holdings and Think Investments. In addition to these, the round saw participation from existing investors Elevation Capital (the Fundamentum Partnership, and others. The additional funding takes the overall funds raised by Spinny to date to more than USD 120 Mn.
Over the last 12 months, Spinny has constantly added multiple industry-first initiatives such as Spinny360 – interactive inventory viewing, Assured Buyback program – tenure-based flexible car ownership, online booking, and doorstep test drives & delivery. In Aug’20, Spinny acquired Mumbai headquartered Truebil to solidify its position in the Indian used car market.
The newly raised capital will be deployed towards improving customer experience, expanding in new markets, strengthening technology and product capabilities, launching new business categories, and building teams across functions. 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. Keen to capitalize on this strong tailwind, Spinny started operations in 4 more cities – Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad – in Jan’21, taking its presence to the top 8 cities of India (including existing cities – Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune). A portion of the proceeds from the round will also be utilized to provide exits to a few seeds and pre-seed-stage investors of the company.
Commenting on this development, Niraj Singh, Founder & CEO, Spinny said “With the changing needs and expectations of the customer, Spinny’s full-stack capability allows us the control to set industry benchmarks in terms of a transparent and simple car buying and selling experience. We are super excited to see our existing investor General Catalyst double down on their conviction and lead this round. That’s great validation and support for the work we are doing. We welcome onboard our new investors Arena Holdings and Think Investments, and thank our existing investors Elevation Capital (prev. SAIF Partners), Accel Partners, the Fundamentum Partnership, and others for their belief in our vision and tremendous support in building the platform. 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.”
Commenting on this development, Adam Valkin, General Partner, General Catalyst said, “At General Catalyst, we constantly seek out the best companies and the best entrepreneurs, wherever they are in the world. The used car market in India is huge and ripe for reinvention. We believe Spinny is uniquely positioned to tap this opportunity–given their compelling leadership and their real market momentum. As long-time investors, we’ve been impressed by how Spinny is reinventing every part of the buying process – injecting trust and safety into every aspect of the customer experience.”
Commenting on this development, Mukul Arora, Partner, Elevation Capital (prev. SAIF Partners) said, “Spinny has become India’s most trusted used car brand and is on its way to becoming India’s largest as well. It’s heartening to hear customers describe the experience of buying a used car from Spinny as being better than that of buying a new car. This has been made possible because of Niraj and the entire Spinny team’s customer obsession and relentless execution. We are privileged to be their early partners and super excited to double down in this round.”
Commenting on this development Anand Daniel, Partner, Accel said “The used car market is known for its notoriety and lack of trust, often leaving a trail of highly dissatisfied customers. Using the full-stack approach, Spinny has built the foundation of its business around trust and customer delight, enabling it to maintain quality consistency and deliver a premium experience. The vision and rigor exemplified by Niraj and the team have made this possible, and we are certain that Spinny will emerge as a market leader in this space.”.
Commenting on this development, Ashish Kumar, Partner, The Fundamentum Partnership said: “We have been very pleased with the progress the company has made since our 1st Investment a year back and decided to re-invest along with the new investors in Series C. I have the privilege of watching very high-quality execution by Niraj and the team at Spinny from close angles and say with confidence that the combination of customer obsession and use of technology in a business that has largely remained offline is unmatched. I am very bullish on Spinny having a real chance at becoming one of India’s largest consumer brands.”
