Carmoola has raised 拢15.5 million equity investment to expand its direct-to-consumer car finance platform.
Carmoola, which launched its app in March 2022, aims to improve what it terms the cumbersome and complex market around lending for used car purchases.
The investment comes from US-based FinTech specialist QED Investors, VentureFriends, InMotion Ventures – the investment arm of Jaguar Land Rover – New York-based investor AlleyCorp and Kyiv-based u.ventures.
It follows an 拢8.5m Series A round and 拢95m debt facility, both secured in February 2023, and a 拢27m seed funding round before that which included the former MD of Google in the UK & Ireland. Carmoola says it will accelerate its journey to profitability.
鈥淲e are incredibly excited about this new investment. It’s a testament to the hard work of our team and the clear value we bring to car buyers by doing things differently,鈥� said Aidan Rushby, co-founder and CEO.
鈥淐armoola came about because we could see that the used car finance market was broken, but the status quo suited traditional lenders just fine, so nobody was doing anything about it. We saw the opportunity to do better and rebalance the situation in favour of the consumer, and our financial backers shared this vision.聽
鈥淣ow that we have proven our concept, we are ready to bring our product to even more people.鈥�
Carmoola says its app has been used to support the purchase of over 拢46m worth of cars to date.聽
Yusuf 脰zdalga, partner and head of Europe at QED Investors, backer of finance unicorns Remitly and NuBank, said: 鈥淐armoola is shaking up an industry that had grown and remains complacent, and is addressing the poor customer outcomes and unnecessary hurdles that the incumbents have allowed to take hold.
鈥淭he customer reviews speak for themselves, and show what a real and noticeable impact Carmoola鈥檚 customer-first approach is having on people鈥檚 lives. It鈥檚 clear from this feedback that access to fair, fast and affordable car finance is about more than buying a vehicle; it supports people鈥檚 lives and livelihoods.鈥�