Droom picks up $10 Mn from Singapore-based holding entity

Automobile marketplace Droom has received $10 million (Rs 69.54 crore) from the Singapore-based holding entity. The infusion from the offshore entity has come at a time when the Gurugram-based firm has been scouting for a Series F round.

According to RoC filings with MCA, Droom Pte. Ltd has picked up 2,34,561 equity shares priced at Rs 2,964.68 each in the Indian entity. A year ago, Droom had announced $30 million worth Series D round from Japan’s auto major Toyota’s investment arm Toyota Tsusho and VC firm Digital Garage.

Soon after Series D round, the company had raised $30 million Series E round from family office of Japan-based investor, Joe Hirao.

Droom claims to have sold over 6 lakhs vehicles through a network of 270,000 auto dealers since its inception in 2014. While the company claims to have a 65% market share of the automobile transactions in the country and about being the fourth largest e-commerce company (in terms of GMV), technically these claims seem hollow.

Droom competes with a clutch of companies including CarDekho and CarTrade and a few others. Last October, CarDekho had raised over $75 million in Series D round while CarTrade has been aggressively exploring fresh round from the US-based investors.

Unlike the competition, Droom facilitates the transaction for used cars on its platform. After finalising the deal, buyers require to deposit 3 to 5% of the total value as a booking amount.

Droom had set up an AI lab to leverage technological interventions like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and big data to offer newer tools and solutions to enable commerce for used automobiles. It also allocated Rs 50 crore for the project.

Apart from the marketplace model, investors have been showing a decent amount of confidence in full stack retailing model. SAIF, Accel, and Blume had poured in $15 million round in Gurugram-based Spinny while Truebil also raked in Rs 100 crore from Joe Hirao.