India Today & Axel Springer Buy Majority Stake In Carwale.com

Five years old automotive website has estimated value worth Rs.100 crore.

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | November 11, 2010

Axel Springer AG and their Indian partners, the India Today Group have together acquired 70.4% stake in online automotive website CarWale.com. The German media company Axel Springer and India Today Group will have 52.1% and 18.3% stakes respectively while 29.6% stake will be held by the founders and employees of Carwale.com.

Launched in 2005, CarWale has been the leading automotive website in India. It started off as a used car listing portal and now has become a website worth Rs.100 crores. In 2006, the portal launched now-famous Used Car Price Guide while it launched two of the most used features on website – Recommend Me A Car and On-Road Prices for new cars in 2007. In 2008, it introduced India to its very own consumer choice car awards – the first of its kind where genuine car buyers and users, and not a jury, voted for their favourite cars. In 2009, it became the only third-party website to accept bookings for the ground-breaking Tata Nano.

Mohit Dubey, CEO and Co-founder of CarWale, says, “We are very excited about this development and we see this as a road to scaling new heights for CarWale, and to bringing you many more 'firsts' as we have done in the past. This is a big step into the future for us, and we are delighted to have you take these steps with us and help us scale new heights. Thank you once again for your support and continued patronage.”

“We are also very thankful to all our associates, both past and present, who have worked here and contributed to building this company. We couldn't have done it without our investors Seedfund, Sierra Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank who have been instrumental in shaping our thinking and execution. And even before them came our angel investors – thank you for believing in us when all we had were dreams. A million thanks, to our entire team and founders who have been there through thick and thin and have helped CarWale reach this milestone,” added Mohit.

Speaking on the acquisition, Ralph Buechi, President, Axel Springer International at Axel Springer AG, said, “India already has more Internet users than Germany, and with a booming auto industry, our investment in CarWale couldn't have come at a better time. Along with our partners, the India Today Group, this investment signifies the next growth step for us in a dynamic and fast growing market, and is in line with our pursuit of a digitisation and internationalisation strategy.”

Ashish Bagga, CEO, India Today Group, added here, “We are delighted with this acquisition. CarWale is the number one player in the online car domain in India. This is in line with our leadership position in the Indian media space and fits well with our expansion into the online business. We see strong synergies with our content, eCommerce initiatives and media assets.”

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