This Start-Up Is in an Acquisition Spree to Expand into Southeast Asia’s Used Car Marketplace

Dipen Pradhan

Singapore-based wholesale automotive marketplace, Carro is in an acquisition spree as it plans to expand its operations in Southeast Asia. The startup today announced the acquisition of Indonesia’s e-classified marketplace – Jualo – as part of the fresh US$30 million funding it raised recently from SoftBank Ventures Asia, including EDBI, Dietrich Foundation, NCORE Ventures, and Hanwha Asset Management.

The new debt finance also marks the closure of the 3-year-old Carro’s Series B round, taking its total fundraise to close to US$100 million to date. The family office of Manik Arora, and existing investors including Venturra, Singtel Innov8, Golden Gate Ventures, and Alpha JWC also participated in the fresh round. It last secured US$60 million in May 2018 in the round that was was co-led by Softbank Ventures Korea, Insignia Ventures Partners, and B Capital Group.

Aaron Tan, CEO and founder of Carro, said the acquisition of Jualo has been completed. “This was done some time ago but we just closed the docs recently and hence the delay in announcing it. But it’s entirely done now,” Tan said. “Our acquisition of Jualo will further boost the reach of our proprietary technology platform in Southeast Asia.”

Launched in 2013, Jualo facilitates an online trading marketplace for used goods in over 300 categories in Indonesia, from automotives and clothing to properties, etc. The company has a monthly traction of close to four million users per month and has facilitated transactions worth over US$1 billion in 2018, Carro announced.

As part of the acquisition, Carro plans on retaining all key staff of Jualo to continue to stay with the company under the original branding. However, it is uncertain if Carro will continue to service Jualo’s other classified offerings. “No plans for that,” Tan said. “The plan is to focus on cars and motorcycles for now.”

Jualo was last reported to have raised an undisclosed amount in 2016 as part of its ongoing Series A funding round from investors including Susquehanna, Lionrock, and Alpha JWC Ventures.