Girnar Software Pvt. Ltd, which operates CarDekho, an online portal for new and used cars, has inflated $250 million as a part of its latest Series E fundraising at an appraisal of about $1.2 billion, earning it as the freshest player to India's burgeoning list of unicorns, two people knowledgeable of the matter said on Tuesday.
The officials said that private investment firm LeapFrog Investments directed the funding round, cooperating with South Korea's Mirae Asset Group and existing investors, demanding anonymity.
They did not reveal the existing investors who took part in the round.
CarDekho's enduring investors include Sequoia Capital India, Hillhouse Capital, and CapitalG, the investment arm of Google's parent Alphabet.
The fundraising has moved CarDekho as the 33rd Indian startup to become a unicorn and the second online car-retailing platform to obtain a $1 billion valuation this year. A unicorn is a privately retained startup with a valuation of at least $1 billion.
The current round has lifted CarDekho's valuation by 70% from nearly $700 million it was estimated at in its previous funding round.
CarDekho had raised $70 million as a part of its Series D round in December 2019, led by Chinese investor Ping An Global Voyager Fund.
CarDekho's fundraising comes at a time when investor interest in online car buying websites has heaved. Last month, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and DST Global led a funding round worth $450 million in CarDekho's rival and used car platform, Cars24.
The investment nearly doubled Cars24's valuation from $1 billion last November to almost $1.84 billion. With the prevailing fundraising, CarDekho is contemplating extending overseas to Southeast Asia even as it seems to open more extensive format stores to grow its occupancy in metro and non-metro cities across India, one of the two people cited above declared.
