Seedfund-backed auto classifieds portal CarWale is believed to have closed its second round of venture funding. Picked up this bit of information on the sidelines of Startup Saturday in Mumbai, but further details on the new investor and investment amount are not available yet. Seedfund had made an undisclosed investment in Carwale for a 30 per cent stake in late 2006. Not clear yet whether it is exiting in favour of the new investor. The company will make an announcement soon enough.
Startup Saturday, the second in the city, was a fun evening. Carwale co-founder and CEO Mohit Dubey took the pre-coffee session which turned out to be a candid affair. The company is in the throes of a big offline services push and much of the conversation picked on the whys and why-nots of taking a pure online business offline. It took Dubey two months to convince even his investors that offline was the way to go, particularly since profits margins are initially low. I’m not surprised at that. If you look at the way Internet businesses have shaped up in India, the online-offline combination has held favour over the pure online model.
Also met a couple of new online startups over coffee — Menu Fry and Blogadda (isn’t that name too close for comfort to Bigadda?). The first, as the name suggests, is a restaurant menus listings site. The site is still in beta and theoretically it is a very useful service, particularly in Mumbai city. Let’s see how Menu Fry works in the real world. Also check out Pune’s Tasty Khana, which is built on a similar premise. I remember the company because of a rather patchy demo at BarCamp Mumbai 3 in March. Blogadda has been around a bit longer, maybe a year, and offers blog listing services — much like Blogstreet. More when more happens at both these portals.
Hey.. I seem to have missed you on Startup Saturday was there only very briefly.
Think the first investment from seedfund was for 3.3 crore. and i think mohit had dropped a hint about the new investment in the tunes of 25+ crores.
Cheers!
Hey Ankur, Thanks for the update. Catch you at the next SS.
its sierra, right?
Hi JabWeTalk: You mean Sierra Ventures?
Most of carwale traffic is fake…23% of their traffic coming from operator account as per alexa.
I work with a major manufacturer in Mumbai. We have been buying leads from last few months and the conversion is 0.02%….which is like the lowest in the market. Not sure how these guys generate unqualified leads like this.
25 crores for what???…Did you guys ever watched the carwale ceo’s speech…he talks all crap….he has no idea wht he is talking about the auto industry. Sierra should get good management team first…Sierra ventures funding carwale just because Seed fund is also funded by Sierra…Take a look at Sierra portfolio companies and Seed fund is just one of them. Seed fund guys begged Sierra to fund Carwale.
I run a DSA used to buy leads from these people. All i got i some junky leads and lost my money. I never ever recommend them.
@Athul, Kiran, Vaibhav, Alok
Whoa, what a coincidence, all negative comments in a single day! Admin, did you check, they all seem to be written by a single person!
Anyways. Stop telling lies. Be brave and face the competition. Posting false comments by changing names and won’t help. Accept that Carwale is beyond the competition’s reach a name in the automotive space in India. Only thing that can help you guys is ‘Do Something!’
Don’t sound like a crankpot. Mohit has proven himself and is running a successful business.