CarWale draws venture capital funding from sierra ventures

Mumbai, Nov 06 (ANI/Business Wire India): CarWale.com, India's leading automotive Internet portal, today announced the successful completion of a series A round of financing.

The investment was led by Sierra Ventures, a Silicon Valley based venture capital firm with more than 1.5 billion dollars under management and a successful track record of investing in technology companies in India.

This funding will be used to fuel CarWale's growth strategy including, expanding sales distribution, increasing marketing efforts, and continuing investment in product activities. Tim Guleri and Vispi Daver of Sierra Ventures will join the company's Board of Directors. CarWale had earlier received seed stage funding from India's leading early stage fund Seedfund. Pravin Gandhi, Managing Partner Seedfund, represents the firm on the company's Board. Gandhi earlier founded India's first IT Company and has been part of the investment team behind companies like Indiabulls and Indiagames.

CarWale offers a complete consumer focused service that includes content and tools for exhaustive research, pricing and marketplace information. As consumers research and make purchase decisions, CarWale connects them with automotive manufacturers, finance and insurance companies, allowing them to make the best decisions for their automotive purchases.

Since inception the company has been acknowledged as the market leader in the category and honored with many prestigious awards including: Red Herring Asia Top 100, BusinessWeek's Top 25 young entrepreneurs in Asia and PC Magazine's Quest Award for best Automotive website.

"CarWale exists to empower car consumers and deliver hassle free car researching and buying. This investment will help us in providing more services and better value to Indian car consumers" said Mohit Dubey CEO of CarWale. "Our partnership with Sierra Ventures will launch a very exciting era for our organization and we are proud to have attracted a top tier Silicon Valley venture capital firm focused on India to help us build the company," added Dubey.

"Sierra Ventures invests in market leading companies in high growth industries and CarWale has an undisputed leadership position in the sector" said Vispi Daver, Partner at Sierra Ventures. "The company has a strong business model and a management team that has consistently delivered compelling results" added Daver.Sierra Ventures has made several investments in India that includes MakeMyTrip.com, India's largest online travel portal.

"CarWale has evolved from a nascent automotive website to the largest automotive portal in the country. They have the potential to significantly influence the Indian automotive industry" said Pravin Gandhi Managing Partner of Seedfund. "We recognized the team and business model early and are pleased to support the continued growth of the company," he added.

ANI