Speeding ahead! Carsome, the Malaysian online car marketplace just raised $290M in a Series E and is now valued at around $1.7B.

• It has expanded to Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.
• It sells nearly 100,000 cars each year

Who cashed in? It was co-led by Seatown Holdings and 65 Equity Partners (both happen to be Temasek-backed), plus the Qatar Investment Authority.

• Other investors include Gokongwei Group, Mediatek, Sunway, YTL Group and Taiwan Mobile.

🧐  How it works

It's a one-stop shop for everything you need to buy a car, including car loans through Carsome Capital.

Buying?

• Get a 360° view of the car, book a test drive, get a loan, pay, transfer ownership and more— all online.
• All Carsome cars go through an intense 175-point inspection, so you'll get your money's worth.

Selling?

• Submit your details in 2 minutes, book an inspection and sell your car in as fast as 24 hours.

🏎  Forget NASCAR

If you've ever wanted to watch NASCAR, look no further. The auto industry's taking us for a spin.

• Carsome's SEA rival and fellow unicorn, Carro, raised a $100M Series C last month and is also prepping to go public.

Carro and Carsome aren't the only big guns. Indian unicorn car marketplaces, Cars24 and CarDekho are also making their way to SEA, and the roads are still wide open for business.

• Online players are only 5% of SEA's total used car market share.
• CarDekho acquired Carmudi Philippines in 2019.

⚙️  Shifting gears

Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing used car market. And with the pandemic making public transportation iffy, more people are buying cars — specifically used cars.

• Sales of used vehicles in SEA were 30% higher than new vehicles in 2020.

🛣  On the road

2022 vision. Carsome's set to achieve operational profitability and list in the US this year through a SPAC.

• With the new cash, it'll be doubling down on hiring, tech development and data. Plus, it'll be expanding its retail (B2C) brand Carsome Certified across markets.