Late in 2013, GM started a campaign Shop-Click-Drive with 100 dealers across the US via which customers could buy cars online. In the pilot, 900 cars were sold and over the next one year, GM had sold 13,000 new vehicles online. The service is currently available in all 50 states in the US with over 1,600 dealers covered. And this is a trend which is expected to spread across the globe over the next decade.

In India, we’re still far from it but advances are being made in that direction. In the last few weeks, there have been many announcements about investors backing various players in India. There are four major players in the segment right now and here is how they stack against each other:


(image credit: Shutter Stock)
1. CarDekho: A product from Jaipur-based GirnarSoft, CarDekho is an auto platform catering to aspiring car buyers, car owners, fans and car dealers across India. CarDekho was started by brothers Amit Jain and Anurag Jain way back in 2008 and it raised $15 million in funding from Sequoia Capital. Recently, CarDekho joined hands with Ratan Tata and further raised a $50 million round of funding led by Chinese firms Hillhouse Capital and Tybourne Capital. The company has about 1,800 used car dealers and has tied up with about eight auto manufacturers. It claims to get 11 million visits per month (7.5 million unique visitors).


2. CarWale: CarWale calls itself an auto media vehicle and was founded in 2005 by Mohit Dubey, Arun Sahlam, Gaurav Verma and Tufail Khan with the backing of Seedfund. It is a platform where car buyers and owners can research, buy, sell and come together to discuss and talk about their cars. In 2008, CarWale completed a Series A round of funding with Sierra Ventures. By 2010, it was getting over 1.3 million visitors and 17 million page views a month. At this point, they were acquired by Axel Springer AG and their Indian partners the India Today Group. The portal recorded 13.2 million visits in January 2015.

3. Gaadi: Founded in 2008 by Ankur Warikoo, Vivek Pahwa, and Umang Kumar, Gaadi lets users buy and sell new and pre-owned cars along with providing them with reviews, comparisons and other related content. Gaadi was acquired for $2 million in 2011 by Ibibo which later sold it off to CarDekho for $11 million. Gaadi.com still operates separately with a healthy traffic which is managed by the team at Girnaar Soft. Accentium Web, the company that owned Gaadi initially, has started up 99cars.com  in the same sector.

4. ZigWheels: A property of Times Internet, ZigWheels started in 2007 with Vijesh Sharma handling product and consumer experience. Now headed by Akshay Chaturvedi, Zigwheels remains a key property of Times Internet. From their website ranking, traffic can be estimated to be about 5.5 million monthly unique visitors. (ZigWheels follows ComScore numbers which are appended after the list)

5. Cartrade.com: MotorExchange was founded by Vinay Sanghi and Rajan Mehra in 2009 and it owns cartrade.com. The company raised a Series A in December 2009 from Canaan Partners and other investors and then In October 2014, it raised $30 million from Warburg Pincus, Tiger Global and Canaan Partners. More recently, ex-auto trader CEO Chip Perry has topped the funding round. The company claims to have listings of more than 100,000 used cars in India and traffic of more than four million unique visitors every month.

6. There are others in the space like India.com’s Oncars.in and MotorTrends.in which was initially Carazoo.com. SAIF Partners recently invested $1 million in Zoomo which is a used cars marketplace with a mobile first approach. Classifieds sites like OLX and Quikr are also competition as they have an auto section.

Alexa has been used as a tool above for comparing but like any tool, there are always concerns about measurement methods. TimesInternet follows ComScore numbers from which Akshay shared the data with us.  Their claim is that ZigWheels has been doing better in terms of unique visitors every month, here is a screen shot from the sheet for the last 6 months of 2014:


The sector has suddenly become visible and one wonders why. Vinod Murali, MD of Silicon Valley Bank, India was part of the deal that had provided venture debt to Carwale and they exited along with the acquisition by Axel Springer/India Today Group. He tells us, “This is a sector which is currently going through its second wind. Along with online travel, the used car classifieds segment was seen to be highly promising a few years back but saw a lull in investor interest till fairly recently.” With one investment going through, others followed. For every new car sold in India last year, a used car was also sold, according to consultancy and market research firm Frost & Sullivan. Reports suggest that 2.5 million new cars were sold in India last year while 3 million used cars were sold. In developed markets, the ratio of new passenger vehicle sales to used passenger vehicle sales is 1:3. This is where India is heading.

All the companies in the fray started during the middle or second half of the last decade and had their own reasons. “We are a bunch of car enthusiasts and back in the time when internet had hardly penetrated India, we knew that the power of technology could be used to make the car buying experience a better one,” Mohit of CarWale told YourStory over a phone conversation. Auto Classifieds is suddenly in the news because of the funding but Mohit says they are unperturbed and will keep marching closer to their goal of making the car buying process easier. They are also confident because of the leg work they’ve done to maintain relationships with dealers. For GirnarSoft, CarDekho quickly became their flagship product with PriceDekho and BikeDekho playing the supporting role. Cardekho.com had close to 3,00,000 used cars listed on the website during 2014, up by 110 per cent from last year’s data and about half of the traffic came via mobile.

Smartphone penetration will play a key role in going ahead and so we took a look at where the numbers stand currently:


CarWale: 36,937 ratings with 4.3, 500k downloads. CarWale’s homescreen straight away asks me to choose used cars or new cars. Other options come in at a later point.
CarTrade: 2,914 ratings with 4, 100k downloads. CarTrade takes the tile approach on the home screen making four things prominent: used cars, new cars, prices and sell my car’.
CarDekho: 2,076 ratings with 4.2, 500k downloads. CarDekho has a sleek UI with a wheel menu which stresses on research about cars and has clear buttons to check and compare old and new cars along with finance options. (Gaadi.com has 1512 ratings with 4, 50k downloads)
ZigWheels: 4546 ratings with 3.9, 100k downloads. The app takes an open approach with options to research new and old vehicles, read news, compare, view pictures and more on the home screen. It also has information for both cars and bikes, as opposed to others who have only cars.


In terms of usability, CarDekho and CarWale do have a better interface and experience (as the ratings would suggest) but all of them are completely functional. If I landed on either of them by chance, I wouldn’t really go looking out for another app and hence from a company’s point of view, discoverability will play a key role. As far as revenues are concerned, all the sites depend on: advertisements, premium listings, lead generation and other intelligence for car dealers and manufacturers.

Investors have made their bets and the market also looks prepared. Globally, there are many multi-billion dollar companies in USA, China, Australia etc that work as auto classified web portals. The According to a KPMG report, BRIC markets will dominate the global car market in 2020. But consolidation has to be on the cards. Vinod says, “I don’t think it is a sector which will have multiple strong players and is likely to end up with two strong players and maybe a third. I think the focus will substantially be in the used car segment rather than first hand purchases which do not have similar economics, have established offline dealer competition and could also depend a lot on broader auto segment performance which can be volatile.” He suggests that companies will need to invest in contemporary and relevant research, building smart rather than pretty interfaces and brand building. “More effort also needs to go into category development because I still hear the same concerns which were prevalent in 2010. Mostly regarding the discomfort of Indian customers towards used car purchases vs. the developed markets where it is a substantial part of the overall auto market. This could be covered through investment into quality assurances and certification which need to be a focus area and can generate service revenues as well,” he says.

In terms of recent events, here is a timeline which is not exhaustive:

2005: CarWale starts
2007: Times Internet starts Zigwheels
2008: GirnarSoft starts CarDekho, Gaadi.com starts, CarWale raises series A
2009: CarTrade starts
2010- CarWale gets acquired by Axel Springer AG/India Today Group
2011: Ibibo acquires Gaadi
2013: GirnarSoft raises $15 million
2014: CarDekho acquires Ibibo-owned Gaadi, Gaadi founder starts 99cars, CarTrade raises $30 million
2015: CarTrade raises from AutoTrade CEO, CarDekho joins hands with Ratan Tata and raises $50 million more, SAIF invests in Zoomo

This has been one hell of a ride for the companies involved and although the Indian consumer market is in the second phase now, we’re pretty far from maturing as a market. This is why more companies are focusing on certification, auto guides, auto news, and in turn building trust with respect to online. With all the companies flush with cash, the engines are revving up to go full throttle!

The Indian e-retailing industry is booming. Case in point, the market size has grown from $600 million two years ago to $2.3 billion. We are at a similar inflection pointasChina was 10 years ago. This is just the beginning. The e-retailing market is expected to reach $32 Billion by 2020.According to Matrix Partners, many ‘Billion dollar e-commerce companies’ are expected to be created in India by then. At present, there are just 3: Flipkart, Snapdeal and Paytm that has just joined the club. Notably, these 3 and the other big domestic and foreign players, namely Shopclues, eBay and Amazon, follow a horizontal marketplace model. As competition amongst them heats up and it is hard to distinguish from each other in terms of products and user experience, new players are emerging with a focus on differentiation.And not surprisingly, they focus on vertical or niche categories. Here’s a look at some ofthem.image credit:Shutter StockTradusandBigBasket(Groceries): Tradus has recently pivoted from being a horizontal marketplace to selling only groceries. While it remains a marketplace, connecting local buyers and sellers in seven cities, BigBasketis not a marketplace and therefore has morecontrol over the entire supply chain. BigBasket has presence in four cities and has its own warehouses and delivery network.UrbanLadder,FabFurnishandPepperfry(Furniture): UrbanLadder is a curated online marketplace for furniture and home decor products, and currently operates in seven cities. FabFurnish too is shifting from an inventory-led model to a marketplace model, thus becoming more cost-effective and also covering more cities. Pepperfry is amanaged marketplace that switched focus from initially selling products across multiple lifestyle categories to only furnitureand home décor. It has the largest coverage,shipping to about 500 cities in India.FirstCry,HopScotchandBabyOye(Baby care products): FirstCry is the leader in the baby care products online retail segment, and has been around for 4 years now. HopScotch is a relatively new entrant and has a flash sales model (which offers smaller scale) as opposed to FirstCry’s inventory-based model. BabyOye follows both an inventory storage model and a just-in-time arrangement with its distribution partners. It had acquired its competitor Hoopos in late 2013. In return, BabyOye has been acquired by the Mahindragroup in February 2015. It appears that the niche baby care players have increasingly been edged out of the market by the large horizontal players such as Flipkart, SnapDeal and Amazon. As a result, out of the half a dozen baby care focused players that had sprung up about five years ago, only a couple of etailers, like FirstCry and Hopscotch, remain in the game.Jabong,ZoviandFashionAndYou(Lifestyle): The lifestyle categories consist of apparel, shoes, jewellery, accessories and home décor and accounts for a massive45% of the entire e-retail market. With the acquisition of Myntra, the prominent playersare Jabong, Zovi and FashionAndYou. They continue to face enormous competition from the horizontal players such as Flipkart, SnapDeal and Amazon that are focusing on fashion more and more. Jabong has been inexistence since 2012 and follows both an inventory model and a managed marketplace model. On the other hand, Zovi designs and manufactures privately labelledlifestyle apparel and accessory products that it sells exclusively online. Lastly, FashionAndYou is a marketplace that operates in a flash sales model, offering products from retailers at discounts for only a limited period.CaratLane,VoyllaandBlueStone: Bluestone has an end-to-end approach to selling jewellery online that involves designing and manufacturing themselves. It also has a just-in-time manufacturing model where the jewellery is manufactured within days ofan order being placed. Caratlane too designs and manufactures its jewellery in-house, but also has a marketplace model for solitaires sourced from vendors globally.While CaratLane and Bluestone sell precious jewellery, Voylla deals largely in imitation jewellery though an inventory-led model.Cbazaar,IndianRootsandCraftsvilla(Ethnic Lifestyle): An emerging trend is niche players dealing in ethnic lifestyle products that have a huge demand outside India in the international market. Three of the prominent players in the space, Cbazaar, IndianRoots and Craftsvilla, have over 50% of their sales of ethnic apparel, home furnishing, home décor, jewellery, bags, etc. originating from abroad. Notably all of them work in a zero-inventory marketplace model.LimeRoadandXarato(Social Shopping): Another recent trend is social shopping where shoppers’ friends become involved inthe shopping experience. There are two onlyplayers in India that have integrated social shopping into the online product discovery and purchasing experience: Limeroad and Xarato* andmany more. Both are lifestyle category marketplaces and differentiate themselves from the rest of the competition by providing value to customers through superior user experience. They have set the benchmark for the next generation of e-commerce sites with social baked in fromthe start.

Silicon Valley venture capitalists are getting more confident about the robust tech scene, their enthusiasm buoyed by the record level of IPOs last year, according to a report released Tuesday.

According to the quarterly Venture Capitalist Confidence Index survey by University of San Francisco professor Mark V. Cannice, VCs surveyed in the fourth quarter last year registered 3.93 on a 5-point scale of confidence. The confidence ranking notched up from the third-quarter reading of 3.89; 5 is the highest market of confidence. The recent confidence reading is also above the 3.72 average over the last 11 years. The increase indicates strong confidence in investment opportunities, the fundraising environment and more successful IPOs this year.

Cannice surveyed 28 Bay Area venture capitalists from different firms.

Cannice’s report attributes the confidence to the last year’s strong IPO market as well as the record level of investments and venture capital fundraising. Last year saw the largest number of
IPOs since 2007 and the most money raised since 2000, about $84 billion. Many valley VCs cashed out on successful deals, such as public debuts from Lending Club, which raised more than $865.5 million, and GoPro, which raised at least $491.3 million.

“We have had six IPOs in the last five quarters and as long as public markets remain open, the pipeline for liquidity is very robust,” Paul Holland, a VC with Foundation Capital, said in the report.

In addition, last year VC firms raised $29.8 billion, a 69 percent increase over the previous year and the largest gain, in both dollar amount and percentage growth, in at least nine years, according to data from Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association. And VCs invested $23.4 billion into tech last year, the most since 2000.

But along with this surplus of money and confidence has come huge funding rounds — more than $1 billion in some cases — that have driven the market values of some companies through the roof.

“My concern is the recent astronomically overvalued pre-IPO prices awarded to Uber, a staggering $40 billion valuation,” said Igor Sill of Geneva Venture Management. He said he is also skeptical that Snapchat, Dropbox and Airbnb are each worthy of their $10 billion valuation.

“The environment is very good with enough capital for both early- and late-stage deals,” one venture capitalist said in the report. “The problem is that the valuations are unrealistic and the number of companies in each segment is way too many without much to differentiate them.” Nino

Source: siliconbeat

While Steven Hsiao and Anson Tsui were in their senior year of college at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2009, they decided to start a delivery service for Vietnamese and Mexican food. They sourced fresh ingredients, prepared the meals and delivered it themselves to other students.

Neither Hsiao nor Tsui had much of a food background; they studied sociology and bioengineering, respectively. But looking at their peers in school, they saw an opportunity for a late-night delivery service.

"It was through that experience that we really understood how inefficient traditional delivery services are," Hsiao told Mashable. With that in mind, they decided to start a different kind of food business after college, one that would provide healthy meals to customers with virtually no wait time.

The startup, called SpoonRocket, launched in part of San Francisco just under a year ago, promising to deliver locally sourced lunch meals to customers in 10 minutes or less for $8, with no delivery fee tacked on. The catch is that SpoonRocket only offers two meal choices at a time — one vegetarian and one not.

On Thursday, SpoonRocket announced that it had raising an $11 million Series A round led by Foundation Capital, bringing the startup's total to more than $13 million. It is also expanding into all of the San Francisco area and is planning to introduce dinner options soon.

The plan is to use the additional funding to bring on more staff and chefs — doubling the number of employees to more than 100 by the end of this year — and expand into Los Angeles or Seattle in the coming months.

The founders had initially set out to raise $8 million to $10 million, but the funding round comes at a time when investor interest in the food space is running high.

Munchery, a startup that offers same-day delivery for meals, recently raised $28 million. Blue Apron, a service that provides recipes and fresh ingredients for meals, recently raised $50 million. And Sprig, a similar service to SpoonRocket, recently raised $10 million.

One investor in the food startup space previously told Mashable that the optimism here is based on the belief that food is inherently social and these startups enjoy a growth curve similar to that of Uber. Hsiao also alluded to Uber during the course of our interview.

"Uber is the taxi button on your phone," he said. "We are the food button on your phone." "Uber is the taxi button on your phone," he said. "We are the food button on your phone."

Of course, all the funding being pumped into the space means SpoonRocket has plenty of competition to achieve that goal. For now, the startup is betting that speed and price can help it stand out, though it's unclear if either or both will be sustainable as it expands into new cities.

Source: Mashable