Cars24, an e-commerce platform for pre-owned vehicles, has announced that it has raised Dh75 million in local debt funding from Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD).
The agreement was signed between Dr Bernd van Linder, CEO of CBD and Vikram Chopra, co-founder and global CEO, CARS24. The company, valued at $1.8 billion, is one of the most valuable privately held pre-owned car startups globally. This debt funding follows the company’s global $450 million funding round in September this year.
Dr. Bernd van Linder, Chief Executive Officer of Commercial Bank of Dubai said, “CBD has always been keen to enhance the overall business environment in the UAE and support start-ups as they are a vital contributor to the growth of the country’s economy. Since last year, there has been a huge increase in the number of online2offline businesses, partially due to the recent global pandemic, and we see a clear need to back these businesses and provide them with the funds they require to scale up and expand.”
After signing this agreement, Vikram stated that, “UAE is a very important and strategic market for us. Raising these funds from CBD at this juncture will further consolidate our leadership position and as a brand we are delighted that the bank has supported our business model.”
Cars24 commenced operations in the UAE in May 2021, and since then the company has sold over 2,000 cars and all of these transactions were conducted entirely online.
In September this year, Cars24 had announced that it would be investing another Dh367 million in the UAE and other GCC countries to further expand its presence.
“UAE market has a great potential and we want to set the stage for 2022 with a strong 4th quarter this year. The economic indicators have rapidly become encouraging and positive after the World Expo 2020, and as a result we have already seen a significant impact on our sales,” concluded Vikram.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Finance World staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)