The Carwow Group has raised 拢41 million funding to accelerate its growth across the UK, Germany and Spain.
The group behind online marketplace Carwow – which acquired automotive media titles Auto Express, Carbuyer, evo and DrivingElectric in February – has been backed by leading San Francisco venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners, which boasts LinkedIn and Shopify in its investment portfolio.
London-based Carwow – which has previously raised $184m, according to Crunchbase – has been valued at 拢250m by the fresh funding.
Existing investors including Accel, Balderton, Episode 1 and Vitruvian also contributed to the round.
Over 10m customers have used Carwow to help them buy and sell cars since the business鈥檚 inception. Last year nearly 拢3 billion worth of cars were bought through the platform, whilst 拢1.8bn of cars were listed for sale through its Sell My Car service.
This latest investment, advised by Arma Partners, will be used to supercharge Carwow鈥檚 strategic growth plans including further scaling and expanding the SMC service in the UK to attract more customers and source more cars for its dealer partners.
Specific focus will be given to enhancing payment processes and further development of its transport offering. Carwow will also look to introduce the SMC service to its German operation in 2025.
The business saw stellar growth in H1 with revenue increasing by 56% as more consumers move online to change their cars and it will be significantly expanding its product and engineering teams over the next few months to deliver this next phase of growth.
鈥淭his is yet another milestone moment for Carwow,鈥� said John Veichmanis, who took over as CEO of the Carwow Group from James Hind last year.聽
鈥淥ver the course of the last three years, we鈥檝e worked tirelessly to develop our car-changing proposition in the UK, giving consumers access to thousands of partners that can help them buy a new car and sell their old one.
鈥淕iven the phenomenal reaction to our strategic blueprint in the UK, we鈥檙e excited to use this new funding to take our proposition to our existing businesses in Germany and Spain.鈥�
Carwow was founded by David Santoro, Alexandra Margolis and Hind in 2013. Santoro is the company’s CTO, Margolis is its creative director and Hind now serves as executive director.
Alex Ferrara, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, commented: 鈥淚鈥檝e been a fan of Carwow鈥檚 videos and content for years and like millions of others, I love their information-rich, impartial car reviews and drag races that make for fun and irreverent entertainment.聽
鈥淐arwow鈥檚 consumer proposition is just as exciting, which is helping make car changing simpler for consumers across Europe 鈥� and with over nine million car changes a year alone in the UK, we鈥檙e looking forward to supporting the management team in growing the business and delivering on its true potential.聽
鈥淐arwow鈥檚 focus on using its content expertise and footprint to drive its commerce services through dealer partnerships makes it unique and compelling in the category.鈥�