Spinny Announces Stock Option Plan For All

Spinny, a used car retailing platform in India, announces the launch of Spinny - Stock Option Plan for all team members

The ESOPs pool was constituted to ensure that team members are rewarded for their belief in Spinny’s vision, and relentless hard work that goes behind turning the vision into reality. Spinny’s belief from the beginning is to build an institution that earns trust by providing complete transparency and a standard car buying and selling experience to each of its customers. It is imperative to nurture a working culture that inspires each team member to do the best work and have a say in all internal processes and decisions with a shared ownership approach in the truest sense

Imbibing the above philosophy into our reward system, all team members would be eligible to receive stocks through the Spinny Stock Option Plan for All.

Commenting on this development, Niraj Singh, Founder & CEO, Spinny said “Since the inception, we have focussed on nurturing a healthy working environment and a robust value system where we work to build a trusted relationship amongst all team members. Our reward philosophy is centered around modern thinking fuelled by compassion, team-work, and shared ownership. Nothing is more important to us than bringing the right solutions for our customers and creating value for the team members."

In December 2021, company had facilitated 1st ESOP buyback and total value of the buyback was $12M. Lot of early team members even from the entry-level blue-collar roles were able to generate handsome cash and purchased their own houses etc. This encouraged the company to come up with ESOP for all policy irrespective of role and designation of any team member.

Aside from ESOP for all, the company has also implemented a few other employee-friendly benefits in the recent past, such as the Spinny Education Sponsorship Program, which provides education assistance to employees seeking higher education to advance their careers, salary advances and loans. The company provides Flexi Basket Policy, Employee Referral Policy, Parental Medical Insurance Policy, Group Personal Accident Policy, and Term Life Insurance.

Additionally, they offer free specialised doctor consultations & mental wellness sessions at their employee assistance program. 

Founded in 2015, Spinny is a used car retailing platform that aims to bring about transparency and convenience in the car buying and selling process in India. Spinny operates across the entire value chain of used cars, embedding superior technology and processes to deliver a premium experience to customers.

As a testimony of Spinny’s commitment to transparency and quality, every car on the Spinny platform comes with a 200-point inspection checklist, 5-day no questions asked money-back guarantee and 1-year after-sales warranty. Spinny has 36 car hubs and is operational in 22 cities, including Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Jaipur, Chandigarh, and Indore, among others. Last year, Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar partnered with Spinny as a strategic investor and a lead brand ambassador. Sports icon, PV Sindhu, a believer, and customer of Spinny, is also a part of the series of marketing initiatives focused on realizing the aspirations of a billion car dreams.

Spinny Raises $43.7 Mn Funding led by Fundamentum Partnership

Online used car retailing platform Spinny on Monday said it has raised USD 43.7 million (about Rs 315 crore) funding led by Fundamentum Partnership (FP), a growth-capital fund backed by Nandan Nilekani and Sanjeev Aggarwal.

The series-B round also saw participation from new investors, US-based General Catalyst Partners, Korea-based KB Financial Group and existing investors Accel, SAIF Partners and Alteria Capital as co-investors, a statement said.

Ashish Kumar, Partner, FP will join the Spinny board, it added.

The funds will be used to invest in technology, strengthen business teams, enhance customer experience and, expand to newer cities, it added.

Spinny had raised its seed round from Blume Ventures and Simile Ventures, and most recently it had closed its Series A round of USD 13.2 million co-led by SAIF Partners and Accel in April last year.

It is currently present across four cities in India and has sold close to 10,000 cars through its platform.

"The FP team was impressed with Spinny team's ability to use technology to solve for operational friction in the business, and thereby build a sustainable advantage," Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and Chairman, FP said.

This fits into FP's thesis of backing long term-oriented entrepreneurs to solve complex business problems using technology and who aspire to build a company at scale and to last, he added.

"With the closure of this round of funding, we are excited to have on-board new investors Fundamentum, General Catalyst and KB Financial Group in our journey and, look to leverage their vast experience across both venture and operating roles," Spinny co-founder and CEO Niraj Singh said.

According to industry reports, for every new car sold in India, approximately 1.3 used cars are sold. Currently, the Indian pre-owned car market stands at about 4.3 million units sold annually, growing at about 14 per cent CAGR. However, only about 18 per cent of the market is organised.

Founded in 2015 by Niraj Singh, Mohit Gupta and Ramanshu Mahuar, Spinny is a tech-enabled pre-owned car platform. Its online-to-offline (O2O) model allows customers to discover cars online on Spinny's website and make the final purchase offline at a Spinny Car Hub. PTI SR

Used Cars Marketplace Spinny Raises $50 Mn from US-based Investors, Fundamentum

Gurgaon-based Valuedrive Technologies, which owns and operates used car buying & selling platform Spinny, has raised about $50 million in a Series B round led by a US-based investor and Fundamentum, a growth capital fund by Infosys Co-founder Nandan Nilekani, reported Entrackr, citing three sources aware with details of the transaction of fundraise.

Some new investors from India also participated in the round.

Spinny's existing investors SAIF Partners and Accel Partners have also participated in the round on a pro-rata basis i.e. on the basis of the number of shares already held by each shareholder.

With this latest round of funding, which is yet to be officially confirmed, Spinny has raised a total of $68 million in funding over 4 rounds to date.

In June this year, Spinny had raised $13.2 million (about Rs 92 crore), from SAIF Partners and Accel Partners, in which India's largest angel network Indian Angel Network, had successfully received full exit from the startup.

Founded in 2015, by Mohit Gupta, Niraj Singh and Ramanshu Mahaur, Spinny is a tech powered new age used car buying platform where customers can shortlist a car of their choice from its online platform, and then can visit Spinny's physical car hubs for a no obligation test drive.

Within a year of its launch, Spinny has had acquired HopCar.in, an another startup in the same industry, in June 2016.

IAN makes it 3rd Exit in 2019 as Spinny Raises $13.2 Mn from SAIF and Accel Partners

Indian Angel Network, the single largest horizontal seed stage platform in India, has successfully received full exit from Spinny, a used car buying and selling platform. Valuedrive Technologies, which owns and operates used car retailing platform Spinny, has raised $13.2 million (about Rs 92 crore), from marquee investment firms SAIF Partners and Accel Partners.

The early investors from IAN, had invested only INR 1.67 crore – and have now a multiple of well over 3 times in just three years.

Commenting on the exit Digvijay Singh, COO IAN said, “IAN’s investment in Spinny was driven by the belief in the founding team’s vision and expertise, as well as its business model. With this exit, IAN investors are reaping the dividends of their faith in this high-potential venture, led by a team focused on execution in the auto space. IAN is delighted to have been a part of the growth that My Spinny has seen in the last three years and wish it all the very best in the future."

[caption id="attachment_131278" align="alignright" width="300"] Digvijay Singh[/caption]

IAN lead investor in Spinny, Hari Balasubramanian commented, “Startups are all about discovering the right business model. Since inception Spinny had gone through several tough and near death situations . But the team led by founder Niraj Singh were relentless and went on trying to discover new approaches to satisfy customers with a compelling value proposition . This ultimately led to product market fit for Spinny. Happy to see their growth and I am confident that this startup is the dark horse in this domain due to the efficient way they have deployed capital for customer development . We as angels did our job of getting them to this stage and it gives me a sense of sadness and joy since we are exiting 100 % from this investment with a reasonable multiple.”

[caption id="attachment_131279" align="alignright" width="300"] Hari Balasubramaniam[/caption]The Spinny IAN exit was facilitated by the Rs 13.12 crores investment from SAIF Partners and Accel, at a pre-money valuation of INR 125 crore. The development also marks the third successful exit for IAN investors in 2019, retaining its position as the top seed investment platform in India. IAN had previously secured multi-fold exits from Noida-based online women’s fashion brand FabAlley.com and a Bengaluru-based start-up TagBox.

Indian Angel Network is India’s first and world’s largest business angel network with close to 500 members across the world, comprising the who’s who of successful entrepreneurs and dynamic CEOs. With investors from 12 countries, IAN’s operates from 7 locations, including cities in India and UK. The network is sector agnostic and has funded start-ups across 17 sectors in India and 7 other countries, helping breed global footprint companies. IAN has been giving excellent cash exits year-on-year to its investor-members. Some of its marquee investee companies include, Druva, Box8, Sapience Analytics, WOW Momos, Faballey, Consure amongst many others.

Indian Angel Network has been a pioneer in the seed and early stage investing. It has now launched a ₹450 Crores VC fund making it now, the single largest platform for seed & early stage, where entrepreneurs can raise from Rs. 25 lakhs to Rs. 50 crores (with co investors), thus making IAN the platform of choice – for both entrepreneurs & investors!

Spinny Secures Seed Funding From Blume Ventures, Indian Angel Network And Others

Gurgaon-based online retailer, Spinny has secured $1 million in seed funding from Blume Ventures and Indian Angel Network. FreeCharge co-founder’s Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon also participated in this round. The startup plans to utilise freshly infused funds primarily for strengthening their technology and expansion of hubs.

Commenting on the investment, Arpit Agarwal, Principal, Blume Ventures said “We did extensive research into the pains consumer go through the buying and selling of used cars in India. Despite the presence of vertical-focused classifieds, the needs of the market are largely unfulfilled as the issue of trust still remains. We found Spinny to be the only company willing to get their hands dirty in solving the problem from the ground up. On top of it, the credentials of founders make them easily the best early-stage team playing in this market.”

Founded by IIT Delhi alumni Niraj Singh and Ramanshu Mahaur along with former Flipkart executives Ganesh Pawar and Mohit Gupta, Spinny was launched in mid-2015. According to the company, they have strategically chosen Delhi-NCR as its target market as it accounts for 18% of India's used cars market. Further, it also represents a good amount of depth in all segments of the market - from those buying on a budget to those dealing in the supercars. In 2016, Spinny acquired Gurgaon-based Hopcar.

“Spinny stands for ‘Car buying & selling with Absolute Trust’. We are bringing radical change to the way pre-owned cars are bought and sold in India. For car owners looking to sell out their cars, Spinny offers simplicity, value and speed of sale that is unprecedented in the used car market till now. Using data from real transactions, we can best predict the selling price of a car as per its true condition and can make a quick offer. This reduces the time to close the deal. It also ends the uncertainty and hassles usually associated with options to sell in the open market,” said Niraj Singh, Founder and CEO, Spinny.

Spinny’s technology which is used in the smart price engine combined with the expertise in assessment of used cars is a perfect combination for ensuring that buyers, sellers and auto financiers are able to meet their expectations.

According to Singh, to entice buyers, the company presents them only high-quality cars with complete transparency about car's true condition and history. As a testimony of company's firm commitment to transparency and fair pricing, every car comes with a 5-day money-back guarantee. The company also provide service warranty with its cars to make the buying and owning experience as good as like buying a new car.

More than 40 Lakh cars exchange hands every year and this market is growing at more than 20% per year. Despit the presence of a large number of offline and online platforms, the buyers and sellers find it troublesome to transact with confidence. Through its revolutionary full stack operating methods and strong technology integration Spinny is looking to streamline the experiences of both sellers and buyers.

Earlier, Blume Ventures, a seed-stage venture fund that backs startups with both funding as well as active mentoring and support had pumped in a $1.2 million in co-working and shared office space provider BHIVE Workspace in a fresh round of funding.

Spinny Merges With HopCar to Strengthen Its Consumer Products and Technology Development

Spinny, a Delhi based startup in the used car industry, has recently completed the merger of HopCar.in, another startup in the same industry. The merger will allow Spinny to strengthen its consumer products as well as the development of its technology while at the same time streamlining operations to achieve greater efficiency.

HopCar was established in August, 2015 to provide consumers with a one stop solution to buy and sell used cars. The online vertical focused on giving consumers value, trust, and convenience and targeted the information asymmetry of the used car market. In a similar vein, Spinny was established with the prime directive of improving the consumer experience and their interaction with the used car market. HopCar had been working to provide customers all the relevant information they required, whether they were buying or selling, so as to ensure information asymmetry didn’t take place at any point in the transaction.

HopCar’s founding team includes Arijit Biswas, Rahul Thakur, Anish Karan and Rahul Anand, and between them they are bringing a wealth of experience and innovation to Spinny.  The approach and the experience of the HopCar fit well with Spinny, which was the prime motive behind the merger.

On the occasion, CEO and Co-founder of Spinny, Niraj Singh said, “The used car market is a very fragmented segment with many different players tackling the same issues in their own ways. HopCar was one such player who were working on very similar lines to our own at Spinny. The technology they were developing, their work philosophy, and their approach to the market made the merger with HopCar a natural choice”. The merger brings immediate benefits for Spinny as it will allow Spinny to further strengthen its position in the Delhi-NCR region and bring greater efficiency to our operations in Bangalore as well.

Adding to this, Co-founder of HopCar and now a core team member at Spinny, Arijit Biswas said,” Our experience in the used car market has shown us that the issues in the market were too great to solve alone. However, finding a partner to tackle these issues wasn’t so straightforward either. Spinny’s vision synced naturally with our own and we look forward to working with Spinny and their team to deliver a satisfactory consumer experience.

Both companies were working on their own Price and Rating Engines. Through this merger, the engines will be combined, improving the accuracy and depth of the engines. This will help Spinny roll out fully featured and developed Algorithmic Engines that will help the consumer to understand the reasoning behind the pricing and certification provided by Spinny.

HopCar’s merger places Spinny in an advantageous position in the Delhi-NCR pre-owned car market. The company is currently streamlining its operations in Bangalore and looks to expand into Tier I and Tier II cities by the end of 2016. The introduction of the Price Engine and Rating Engine in the coming months will allow Spinny to better cater to consumer needs while at the same also further improve the overall consumer experience for people looking for a reliable, data-driven, and transaprent platform to buy or sell pre-owned cars.

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