The Singapore Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (SVCA) have awarded Carro Singapore with the VC Deal of the Year award 2018. The award was given out during SVCA’s 26th Anniversary celebrations on 8 October 2018.
The SVCA award recognizes significant venture capital and private equity firms who have made successful and significant investments and exits last year.
Insignia Venture Partners, one of Carro’s many investors, bagged the VC Deal of the Year award for their investment in Carro. SVCA pointed to three key reasons for awarding Insignia Venture Partners with the award. An excellent working relationship with Carro’s management and “value-add in hiring and follow-on financing”. These reasons have helped them to distinguish themselves from other nominees.
Carro’s Exponential Growth
With a strong and unique business proposition, Carro offers a full-stack service for all aspects of car ownership. Carro challenges the traditional way of buying and selling of cars through a proprietary pricing algorithm while offering a trustworthy and transparent experience. Carro has also created an automotive ecosystem of services that leverage innovation and technology to provide consumers with a seamless experience.
The 3-year old start-up is well on its way to becoming Southeast Asia’s largest automotive marketplace, having started their expansion into Thailand and Indonesia in 2017. Carro’s expansion coincides with their exponential year-on-year growth, recording over US$100 million worth of transactions in 2016. And incredibly, the figures doubled to over US$250 million in the following year.
In June 2018, Carro raised a US$60 million Series B round led Insignia Venture Funds and other notable venture funds such as SoftBank Ventures and B Capital Group. In 3 years, Carro has raised a total of US$75 million, which will go to growing their presence across Southeast Asia and improving existing services in their automotive ecosystem.
Other SVCA Award Winners
There were a total of four awards given out for four different groups. The ‘Fund Raise of the Year’ award was handed out to Dymon Asia Capital (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. for its fundraising of US$450-million last year.
The “PE Deal of the Year” was awarded to Navis Capital Partners for its investment in quality-control company AsiaInspection. As for the “PE Exit of the Year” award, TPG Capital received it for the sale of its 50 percent stake in Myanmar Distillery to ThaiBev for about US$494.4 million.
