Pre-owned cars platform Spinny, which secured a big Series B cheque from a Nandan Nilekani-backed investment firm earlier this year, has acquired smaller rival Truebil, a person familiar with the deal told VCCircle.
The deal is a combination of cash and equity, the person said, without disclosing any other details. The person also did not reveal if the transaction entails the exit of Truebil’s investors or whether they are getting a stake in Spinny.
Both Spinny and Truebil have a bunch of venture capital backers. Spinny counts Nilekani-backed Fundamentum Partnership, SAIF Partners and Accel among its investors. Truebil is backed by investors including Kalaari Capital, Inventus Capital, Kae Capital, Chinese venture firm Shunwei Capital and San Francisco-based Tekton Ventures.
The Forbes magazine first reported the acquisition citing Neeraj Singh, co-founder of Spinny. In another report, digital media platform Entrackr said that Truebil hadn’t been in good shape for the past many months and that the coronavirus pandemic worsened its position.
An email sent to Spinny and Truebil did not elicit a response immediately.
Spinny, operated by Yellow Drive Technologies Pvt. Ltd, was founded in 2015 by Neeraj Singh, Mohit Gupta and Ramanshu Mahuar.
The Gurugram-based startup says its online-to-offline model allows customers to discover cars on its website and make their final purchase at a designated hub. The company takes care of the associated paperwork for a customer, including registration certificate transfers and financing options.
In March, Spinny had raised $43.7 million in its Series B funding led by the Fundamentum Partnership, backed by Nilekani and Sanjeev Aggarwal.
Prior to this, Spinny had raised around $13.2 million in a Series A funding round led by SAIF Partners and Accel last year. Venture debt firm Alteria Capital, TaxiForSure co-founder Raghunandan G and True North partner Haresh Chawla had also pooled in capital.
Truebil was founded in 2015 by former Housing.com employees Suraj Kalwani, Ravi Chirania, Shubh Bansal, Rakesh Raman and Shanu Vivek, along with former Fab.com executive Ritesh Pandey and former Rio Tinto official Himanshu Singhal.
The startup, operated by Paix Technology Pvt. Ltd, raised early-stage funding from Kalaari, Inventus, Kae Capital and Shunwei in 2016 and 2017. Last year, it secured $14 million in its Series B funding round led by Japanese investor Joe Hirao, who is the founder of multi-business firm ZIGExN. A few months later, it raised $1 million from Japanese venture capital firm Spiral Ventures.
Other heavily venture capital-backed players in the used-car segment are CarDekho and Droom.
