Carsome

Gobi Partners’ continued faith and multiple investments into Carsome paved the way for the e-commerce platform to dominate Southeast Asia’s used car scene, en route to becoming Malaysia’s first and largest unicorn.

Carsome plans to introduce auto-financing for graduates in Indonesia and Thailand, as it targets a loan size of at least MYR 100M ($24.17M) for its auto-financing business in 2022.

Funds will be deployed to explore growth opportunities in Singapore and Malaysia, and kickstart its expansion into Thailand.

Malaysia’s tech ecosystem is finally coming of age, and this is the moment to unlock Malaysia’s Underrated, Untapped and Unknown Unicorns-in-making. 

The Series D2 round saw participation from one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the region and a pool of new international investors such as Catcha Group and MediaTek as well as strong participation from existing shareholders including Asia Partners, Gobi Partners, 500 Southeast Asia, Ondine Capital, MUFG Innovation Partners, Daiwa PI Partners, and…

Catcha Group will become a shareholder of the Carsome Group in exchange for the sale of its shares in iCar Asia to Carsome.

The development came after the startup is said to be weighing going public with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) as option.

In this interview, Eric Cheng, Carsome Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, shares his insights on the company's strategy in using data, innovations, and partnerships to address the industry pain points and expansion in Southeast Asia