Exclusive: Spinny set to become a unicorn with $1.9 Bn valuation

Used car retailer Spinny is all set to score a new round and attain the coveted unicorn status. The company is in late-stage talks to mop up $250-300 million from new and existing investors, according to three people aware of the details of the transaction.

“Tiger Global along with a new investor are in the last leg to lead a $250-300 million new round in Spinny,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity. “Avenir Growth, General Catalyst, Fundamentum, Accel and some new investors will also participate in the fresh round.”

Spinny will be the third company from Gurugram in the used car space to be valued at over $1 billion after Cars24 and Droom. Entrackr couldn’t ascertain the name of new investors joining its Series D round.

According to sources, there is a lot of inbound interest in the company and investors are offering 2X premium in the new round over the last one. “Spinny will be valued anywhere between $1.7-1.9 billion in this round,” the second source who also wished not to be named as talks are yet to be public.

Spinny, which is a full-stack used-car retailer, was valued at $750-800 million in its last round. Entrackr had exclusively reported the Tiger Global-led round in July. 

If the deal materializes at this value, Spinny’s valuation will be on par with DST-backed Cars24. Cars24 had raised a $450 million round from DST, Falcon Edge, SoftBank, and Tencent at a valuation of around $1.84 billion. 

Entrackr had decoded a large part of this round on September 10. This round had a debt component of $110 million on top of $340 million equity.

Tiger Global chose not to comment on the story. Queries sent to Spinny, General Catalyst, Fundamentum and Accel didn't elicit an immediate response. We will update the story in case they respond.

How Spinny differentiated in the crowded used car space

Founded in 2015 by Niraj Singh, Spinny was started with a managed classifieds approach. However, the company pivoted in 2017 to become a full-stack platform to weed out mistrust. Under the new focus, the company started owning every piece of experience: fixing all glitches, post-sales service and finance.

The pivot worked for Spinny and the company differentiated itself from CarDekho and Cars24. Investors also started to build trust in the company’s new model and in May 2019 it raised a $13.2 million Series A round. Then in February 2020, the company closed its $43.7 million series B round.

After the first and second waves of the pandemic, the demand for used cars increased significantly. The demand brought a much-needed scale for Spinny and its growth impressed several top-notch investors including Tiger Global. 

During the last six months of 2021, the company had raised $165 million across two rounds led by Tiger Global and General Catalyst. A year ago, it also acquired Mumbai-based used car marketplace Truebil. 

With this potential round, the company will end up with more than $400 million in a matter of six to seven months in back to back fundraising, skyrocketing its valuation almost 12X from its Series B valuation of $150 million last year.

“Spinny has cut through the noise and emerged as a formidable force and one of the most valued startups in the used car space. It is poised to scale at a fast pace as the company is looking to expand into two dozen more cities,” said the person quoted above.