CarDekho Acquires Youtube Channel PowerDrift

In yet another strategic move, Jaipur Headquartered Girnar Software Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates India’s largest auto portals CarDekho.com, Gaadi.com, ZigWheels.com and BikeDekho.com has announced the acquisition of PowerDrift Studios Private Limited, popularly known as PowerDrift. PowerDrift is India’s largest YouTube channel for automotive content and is on the verge of being the only automotive channel on YouTube to reach a million subscribers. This makes Girnarsoft group the largest automotive video content player reaching out to 1.4 million subscribers.

Founded in 2012 by Rohan Albal and Amit Shetty, PowerDrift is a new age rich media content creation company that specialises in creating unique lifestyle and engaging video content for consumers and enthusiasts of cars and motorcycles in India. Awarded with the 'Best Auto Content Creator - All India' award at the Social Media Summit 2018, PowerDrift's content has been an amalgamation of sound understanding of cars and motorcycles and the subtle art of filmmaking. Surpassing all the industry giants and conventional auto shows in near half the number of Videos and half the time, PowerDrift today clocks in 10million+ views monthly and has gone on to become a cult as India’s most favourite auto show.

In just a span of five years since its inception, PowerDrift has dominated the video content space in the country with more than 240 million lifetime views on its YouTube channel with an average of 2 lakh views per video. Importance of Video content is underlined by the Google – Kantar TNS study, which states that 80 % of car buyers watch online video during their car buying journey.

PowerDrift is Girnar Software’s 8th acquisition spanning across technology and content space. Aiming to digitize the entire auto ecosystem of the country, GirnarSoft has become largest automotive video content player with 1.4 million YouTube subscribers, largest consumer facing digital destination with 30 million monthly unique visitors coming on group sites and largest auto social media platform in the country.

Speaking on the Acquisition, Amit Jain, Co-founder and CEO, CarDekho said, “These are exciting times. CarDekho has always innovated and focussed on providing the best user experience. Content plays an extremely important role in that. By bringing PowerDrift on board, I am convinced that this acquisition will prove to be a game-changer. We will come up with the best in class video content, which will be a visual treat and decision enabler for all stakeholders. I welcome each one from PowerDrift on-board and look forward to a power-packed innings!”

Rohal Albal, Co-Founder and CEO, PowerDrift said, “Showcasing Indian motoring in a unique and world class way has been the founding principle of PowerDrift. This alliance enables us in creating more exciting content, but also offers great value to our viewers. With our strengths compounded, I can’t wait for an even bigger, more exciting automotive future for India”.

Girnar Software is one of India’s leading consumer internet companies. The group runs India’s largest auto sites - CarDekho.com, Zigwheels.com, BikeDekho.com and Gaadi.com. The company is also a pioneer in introducing specialised portals like TyreDekho.com and TrucksDekho.com and CollegeDekho.com. GirnarSoft went international in 2015 with an auto site CarBay.com in multiple countries in Asia and Middle East. It also launched OTO.com in Indonesia which has become the number one auto site. Girnar Software has acquired Gaadi.com, Zigwheels.com, Buying IQ (shopping engine), Drishya360s (virtual reality), Volob Technologies (AR-VR focused visual communications), Connecto (SaaS start-up), Help on Wheels, road side assistance startup.

Girnar Software has raised funding from Marquee investors which include Google Capital, Tybourne Capital, Hillhouse Capital, Sequoia Capital, HDFC Bank, Ratan Tata and Times Internet. The company is currently valued at USD 380 million.The group’s vision is to be a multi-billion dollar company by 2021 with global footprint.

CarDekho Acquires Youtube Channel PowerDrift

In yet another strategic move, Jaipur Headquartered Girnar Software Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates India’s largest auto portals CarDekho.com, Gaadi.com, ZigWheels.com and BikeDekho.com has announced the acquisition of PowerDrift Studios Private Limited, popularly known as PowerDrift. PowerDrift is India’s largest YouTube channel for automotive content and is on the verge of being the only automotive channel on YouTube to reach a million subscribers. This makes Girnarsoft group the largest automotive video content player reaching out to 1.4 million subscribers.

Founded in 2012 by Rohan Albal and Amit Shetty, PowerDrift is a new age rich media content creation company that specialises in creating unique lifestyle and engaging video content for consumers and enthusiasts of cars and motorcycles in India. Awarded with the 'Best Auto Content Creator - All India' award at the Social Media Summit 2018, PowerDrift's content has been an amalgamation of sound understanding of cars and motorcycles and the subtle art of filmmaking. Surpassing all the industry giants and conventional auto shows in near half the number of Videos and half the time, PowerDrift today clocks in 10million+ views monthly and has gone on to become a cult as India’s most favourite auto show.

In just a span of five years since its inception, PowerDrift has dominated the video content space in the country with more than 240 million lifetime views on its YouTube channel with an average of 2 lakh views per video. Importance of Video content is underlined by the Google – Kantar TNS study, which states that 80 % of car buyers watch online video during their car buying journey.

PowerDrift is Girnar Software’s 8th acquisition spanning across technology and content space. Aiming to digitize the entire auto ecosystem of the country, GirnarSoft has become largest automotive video content player with 1.4 million YouTube subscribers, largest consumer facing digital destination with 30 million monthly unique visitors coming on group sites and largest auto social media platform in the country.

Speaking on the Acquisition, Amit Jain, Co-founder and CEO, CarDekho said, “These are exciting times. CarDekho has always innovated and focussed on providing the best user experience. Content plays an extremely important role in that. By bringing PowerDrift on board, I am convinced that this acquisition will prove to be a game-changer. We will come up with the best in class video content, which will be a visual treat and decision enabler for all stakeholders. I welcome each one from PowerDrift on-board and look forward to a power-packed innings!”

Rohal Albal, Co-Founder and CEO, PowerDrift said, “Showcasing Indian motoring in a unique and world class way has been the founding principle of PowerDrift. This alliance enables us in creating more exciting content, but also offers great value to our viewers. With our strengths compounded, I can’t wait for an even bigger, more exciting automotive future for India”.

Girnar Software is one of India’s leading consumer internet companies. The group runs India’s largest auto sites - CarDekho.com, Zigwheels.com, BikeDekho.com and Gaadi.com. The company is also a pioneer in introducing specialised portals like TyreDekho.com and TrucksDekho.com and CollegeDekho.com. GirnarSoft went international in 2015 with an auto site CarBay.com in multiple countries in Asia and Middle East. It also launched OTO.com in Indonesia which has become the number one auto site. Girnar Software has acquired Gaadi.com, Zigwheels.com, Buying IQ (shopping engine), Drishya360s (virtual reality), Volob Technologies (AR-VR focused visual communications), Connecto (SaaS start-up), Help on Wheels, road side assistance startup.

Girnar Software has raised funding from Marquee investors which include Google Capital, Tybourne Capital, Hillhouse Capital, Sequoia Capital, HDFC Bank, Ratan Tata and Times Internet. The company is currently valued at USD 380 million.The group’s vision is to be a multi-billion dollar company by 2021 with global footprint.

Girnar Software Acquires Roadside Assistance Provider Help On Wheels in An All-Cash Deal

To bolster the operations of its RSA vertical, Girnar Software Pvt Ltd, which owns CarDekho.com, Gaadi.com and Zigwheels.com, has acquired roadside assistance (RSA) provider Help On Wheels Pvt Ltd in an all-cash deal. Post acquisition, Help On Wheels’ 50 members team, will join Girnar Software while its founders will report to Ankur Agarwal, AVP – new cars at Girnar Software.

Girnar Software has started its RSA vertical a few months ago and claims to have over 8,000 users. The company wants to create an entire ecosystem from car buying to car ownership. It also provides auto insurance through its exclusive tie up with CoverFox.

Founded in 2014 by Lalit Parmar and Nirmal Mitra, Help On Wheels provides roadside assistance services and claims to have more than 50,000 customers.

Girnar Soft has acquired 5 companies till now, including Help On Wheels. Earlier it bought Drishya360, Gaadi.com, Zigwheels, and BuyingIQ. In March, the company received an undisclosed amount of investment from Google Capital as part of its extended Series B funding round, with participation from existing investor Hillhouse Capital. And, in January 2016, it secured $50 million in the first tranche of its Series B funding round led by Hillhouse Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital and Tybourne Capital. Last year, HDFC Bank and Ratan Tata had also made investment in the firm.

It competes with CarTrade.com, which raised $145 million funding from Temasek Holdings, US-based March Capital and existing investor Warburg Pincus in its latest round in January 2016.

Girnar Software Acquires Roadside Assistance Provider Help On Wheels in An All-Cash Deal

To bolster the operations of its RSA vertical, Girnar Software Pvt Ltd, which owns CarDekho.com, Gaadi.com and Zigwheels.com, has acquired roadside assistance (RSA) provider Help On Wheels Pvt Ltd in an all-cash deal. Post acquisition, Help On Wheels’ 50 members team, will join Girnar Software while its founders will report to Ankur Agarwal, AVP – new cars at Girnar Software.

Girnar Software has started its RSA vertical a few months ago and claims to have over 8,000 users. The company wants to create an entire ecosystem from car buying to car ownership. It also provides auto insurance through its exclusive tie up with CoverFox.

Founded in 2014 by Lalit Parmar and Nirmal Mitra, Help On Wheels provides roadside assistance services and claims to have more than 50,000 customers.

Girnar Soft has acquired 5 companies till now, including Help On Wheels. Earlier it bought Drishya360, Gaadi.com, Zigwheels, and BuyingIQ. In March, the company received an undisclosed amount of investment from Google Capital as part of its extended Series B funding round, with participation from existing investor Hillhouse Capital. And, in January 2016, it secured $50 million in the first tranche of its Series B funding round led by Hillhouse Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital and Tybourne Capital. Last year, HDFC Bank and Ratan Tata had also made investment in the firm.

It competes with CarTrade.com, which raised $145 million funding from Temasek Holdings, US-based March Capital and existing investor Warburg Pincus in its latest round in January 2016.

CarDekho Raised $50 Million With Investment From Ratan Tata

CarDekho.com, the flagship portal of GirnarSoft announced the closure of second round of funding with a raise of USD 50 Million. The funding was led by Hillhouse Capital with participation from Tybourne Capital and Sequoia Capital. The single transaction funding was concluded early this week. Elara Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor to the transaction. With this the parent company Girnar Software is now valued at USD 300 Million.

Ratan Tata has also made a personal investment in CarDekho.com, however we could not ascertain the exact size of Tata's investment. However, like Tata's previous deals, all of which have been in his personal capacity, this too will be a small minority stake for him in the venture.

Earlier, Ratan Tata made investment in SnapDeal followed by jewellery e-store bluestone and online furniture e-tailer Urban Ladder.

Coming on to Cardekho.com, sharing plans about this venture, Mr. Amit Jain, CEO and Co-Founder, GirnarSoft said, "Together, CarDekho.com and Gaadi.com are by far the largest players in online auto classifieds space by revenue and traffic in the country. Our vision is to be company with global footprint through our innovative products and services."

"This is the largest quantum of fund raise in this segment in India so far. We see the second round of investment as an endorsement of our strategy and progress so far. Our revenues have grown three-fold since 2013 when we received our first round of funding from Sequoia, and we are doubling our lead generation Y-O-Y. This is the time we are looking to rapidly expand our business and therefore the funding adds to our fast paced growth in the online auto portal segment" he further added.

Mr. Anurag Jain, COO and Co-Founder, GirnarSoft said, "This is a very exciting time for the company and a high point in the Indian automobile industry. With this funding we have plans to enhance the technology and services of CarDekho.com along with increased focus on brand building and marketing initiatives of the company. As the #1 auto portal of the country, it is also our responsibility to develop the category by providing the best offerings to consumers, best services for dealers and top notch support to OEM manufacturers."

Commenting on their investment, Mr. David Rhee, a partner of Hillhouse Capital said, "We see tremendous growth opportunities in the online automobile classified market in India. CarDekho, as the clear leading player in this space, is the best positioned to take advantage of this market. We are in the early stages of the development of the auto industry and its transition to online. We are excited to be partnering with such an exceptional management team to continue to build and grow this business over the long term."

Also, sharing views on this partnership, Mr. Eashwar Krishnan, portfolio manager of Tybourne Capital said, “We have a substantial amount of capital invested across global classified assets and are excited to add CarDekho to our portfolio. We view CarDekho as a direct comparable to Autohome in China (another Tybourne investment), and as the leader in the space, we expect CarDekho to capture a substantial portion of the auto classifieds market in India. We look forward to partnering with the management team as the company moves into its next phase of growth."

Mr. Shailesh Lakhani, Partner at Sequoia Capital expressed his views by saying, "CarDekho has redefined the purchase experience for car buyers in India. Led by Amit and Anurag, the company has assembled one of the best internet teams in India. We are excited to welcome Hillhouse and Tybourne as new investors to CarDekho and their support as we continue the journey to building a large internet auto company."

The automobile space has created the largest market value among vertical classifieds and globally public and private companies in the space are together valued at over USD 50 Billion. Given that India is soon to become the third largest car market in the world, CarDekho.com, which is India’s undisputed #1 player, is poised to create significant value for its shareholders.

Hillhouse Capital is a USD 18 Billion fundamental equities investment firm. Hillhouse invests globally across the consumer, Internet, healthcare, and industrials sectors. The firm was founded by Lei Zhang in 2005. Hillhouse’s investment strategy is to work with the world’s best entrepreneurs to build scalable businesses for the long-term. This particular investment in GirnarSoft was led by David Rhee who leads international investments for the firm and will join Girnar Software’s board.

Tybourne Capital is among the most high profile Asia focused hedge funds and manages USD 3 Billion in assets. The fund is led by Eashwar Krishnan and has a special focus on technology, media and internet companies. Based in Hong Kong, Tybourne has made investments across ecommerce (Snapdeal, Uber, Amazon, ASOS), online media (Autohome, Naspers, Tencent) and enterprise software (Palantir) companies.

Its Official, CarDekho.com Acquires Gaadi.com

Girnar Software Pvt Ltd, owners of auto portal CarDekho.com, and ibiboGroup have announced an agreement whereby GirnarSoft will acquire Gaadi.com, one of India’s leading auto portals, for an undisclosed amount. In June this year, we reported and predicted that this acquisition is going to happen soon, this time its official.

With the combined volumes of CarDekho.com and Gaadi.com exceeding 15 million monthly visitors, this transaction positions GirnarSoft as the undisputed #1 player in auto search and lead generation business in India.

The company stated that CarDekho.com and Gaadi.com will continue to run independently and operate as separate businesses in order to drive deep focus. While management teams of each of these entities will continue to build their businesses, GirnarSoft will look to create cross-synergies in product development for consumers and dealers, as well as in back-end operating systems.

Gaadi.com was founded in 2008. The company was acquired in 2011 by ibiboGroup during the early days of its evolution, and quickly became a leader in the used car segment online.

Speaking on this occasion, Umang Kumar, co-founder/CEO Gaadi.com said, "This is a great outcome for all stakeholders - Ibibogroup, Gaadi employees and CarDekho. Gaadi.com grew 10x in 3.5 years as a part of Ibibogroup and together with CarDekho we can scale our leadership in the used car business even faster. I had a good time at Ibibo, and hope to have an even better time with CarDekho!"

According to Amit Jain, founder/CEO of GirnarSoft, "Bringing Cardekho.com and Gaadi.com together creates outright market leadership for us in online auto in terms of visitors, dealer base and revenue. CarDekho.com is already #1 in the new car segment, and growing rapidly with its OEM and dealer tie-ups. The used car strength that Gaadi.com brings to the stable means that we will now be able to offer unparalleled products, services and support to all stakeholders, be it consumers, OEM manufacturers and new and used car dealers."

The core business model of CarDekho and Gaadi is earnings from lead generation for new and used cars, and media sales on their portals. The two put together boast of more than 2,500 car dealer tie-ups across the country, the largest among auto portals. Besides these, CarDekho helps retail over 4,000 cars per month for eight OEM manufacturers that it partners with.

According to Ashish Kashyap, CEO of ibiboGroup : "biboGroup wants to focus on online travel sector across its assets: Goibibo.com, TBOGroup, redBus.in and YourBus. ibibo has significant leadership and scale in each of these businesses and would want to further expand in this sector. Umang and the team at Gaadi.com are excellent and we have enjoyed working with them to build out the vertical. Our aim was to ensure that Gaadi.com gets the right home, and we are happy that it has been achieved through this acquisition."

Founded in 2007 by brothers Amit and Anurag Jain, both IIT-Delhi alumni, Girnar Software is engaged in three internet portals - CarDekho.com, BikeDekho.com and PriceDekho.com. The company does outsourcing services as well including website and mobile application development, testing and Q&A services.

Cardekho.com to acquire Gaadi.com for $11 million

Cardekho.com, one of India's most popular auto portal is about to buy Gaadi.com, an another major auto classified portal of India. The acquisition transaction is said to be $11 million. Gaadi.com is owned by ibibi group, a unit of South African internet and media giant - Naspers, while Cardekho is owned by Jaipur based Girnar Software Pvt. Ltd which is backed by Sequoia Capital.

Although, Ibibo group is paying attention to other bidders as well apart from CarDekho.com, to sell out Gaadi.com. However as per reports CarDekho's offer is being considered foremost.

If the deal would finalized it would be the first consolidation move in a fragmented online auto classifieds market and also the combined online entity come out with after the acquisition will make the acquiring company a largest online auto classified market in the country by both traffic and revenue.

This will be the second acquisition of Gaadi.com ever since it came into existence in year 2008, at first, Ibibo Group had acquired Gaadi in 2011 for about $2 million. Now Ibibo groups wants to sell out Gaadi.com just after 3 years because it wants to focus on its travel portfolio websites - Goibibo.com and RedBus.in.

Moreover, this will be the fourth acquisition of an auto portal in India so far, in 2010 German media company Axel Springer and the India Today Group together acquired a 70.4% majority stake in auto classifieds business Carwale.com. In 2009, MotorExchange had acquired B2C auto portal CarTrade India.

Founded in same year as Gaadi.com, i.e. 2008, Cardekho.com served as many as 3.4 crore unique visitors over the first 4 years of its lifetime and sold over 1.7 lakhs used cars till date.

Jaipur based Girnar Software, which other than Cardekho.com, owns internet portals like Bikedekho and Pricedekho.com had received $15 million in funds from Sequoia in November 2013.