Singapore-based car marketplace Carro has raised $5.3m in a series A round that included telecommunications firm Singapore Telecommunications and internet company GMO, Tech in Asia reported today.
The round was led by Venturra Capital, a venture capital firm backed by conglomerate Lippo, and also featured Golden Gate Ventures, Alpha JWC Ventures and Skystar Capital. SingTel and GMO participated through their Singtel Innov8 and GMO Venture Partners units respectively.
Founded in July 2015, Carro’s main product is a website and mobile app that car owners can use to buy and sell vehicles. The company offers additional, related services such as loans and insurance, and provides car inspections and seller certification.
Carro also runs a machine learning platform dubbed Graph.sg that lets owners calculate the value of their car, while its e-commerce offering Carro Accessories allows customers to purchase car-related gadgets. Carro Workshop helps drivers find the nearest and highest reviewed garage.
The company will use the cash to expand into Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand by the end of 2016. It is also in the process of hiring iOS and Android developers, car specialists, marketers and other staff.
Carro secured S$1m ($710,000) in seed capital from undisclosed backers in November 2015,.
Aaron Tan, CEO of Carro, said: “At this stage, we will probably launch with a variant of our main product for each market. And we have the luxury of doing so given all our technical background – we can build and churn through products faster than anyone in the market does.”