Spotawheel, the Greek used car trading platform, is gearing up for expansion with a €100m ($105m) funding round, backed by classifieds portal operator Adevinta and insurer Uniqa, TechCrunch has reported.
Founded in 2015, Spotawheel has built a second-hand automotive trading platform that enables potential buyers to view cars, which can be delivered to their homes. In addition to its home country, it also operates in Poland and Germany, and is in the process of entering Romania. The company is set to expand its team and operations, especially in Germany and other Western European countries.
The second-hand car market has seen strong growth in the last year, with prices at record levels as demand outstrips limited supplies of used cars.
Charis Arvanitis, founder and chief executive of Spotawheel, told TechCrunch: “Our major competitive advantage [against peers such as Autohero] is our proprietary sourcing engine blending technologies like big data, machine learning with human ingenuity.”
Venture capital firm VentureFriends led the round, which included other investors including Rockaway Ventures, Velocity Partners, FJ Labs, Collective Spark and Endeavour Catalyst.
A UK-based credit fund and other similarly unnamed institutional investors also took part in the equity portion of the round and supplied an unspecified amount of debt. Adevinta Ventures and Uniqa Ventures represented Adevinta and Uniqa respectively.
VentureFriends led a $11.9m debt and equity funding round in 2020, investing alongside Velocity Partners and FJ Labs, after Spotawheel had secured about $9.5m in total. VentureFriends had also led a $5.5m round the year before, which featured Velocity Partners and unnamed strategic backers.
Image courtesy of Spotawheel.
