Carousell is growing – fast.
In a press release this morning, the Singapore-grown startup announced its acquisition of Singapore startup Caarly, a car classifieds platform, in a bid for leadership in the car classifieds vertical, and also to forward their aim to be the “world’s number 1 classifieds marketplace”.
Caarly, a mobile-first productivity tool that helps used car dealerships to manage their inventory currently has more than 200 car dealers on board, making up a “significant proportion of car dealerships in Singapore”.
Via the acquisition, the Caarly team and their automotive products would come on board the Carousell family. Current users of the former would also not need to completely move their operations and listings to Carousell, and would be able to post to its Cars category with “a simple 1-tap post”.
Said Siu Rui Quek, co-founder and CEO of Carousell:
“Over 50% of [our users] in Singapore are now over 25 years old, and have significantly more purchasing power. We’ve seen how their evolving needs have resulted in more listings and greater demand in higher value verticals like cars. This acquisition allows us to tap on Caarly’s relationships with car dealers, to give users the widest selection of cars on a classifieds marketplace beginning in Singapore and throughout APAC soon after.”
“This acquisition makes Carousell the best place for users to find exactly what they need when they’re looking for a new or preloved car, and also paves the way for our monetisation strategy as high value verticals will be a key revenue driver for us.”
Easing In The Changes With New Leadership
In the press release was also the announcement of two management staff joining the team – Winnie Khoo, newly appointed General Manager for Carousell Singapore and Malaysia, and CFO Rakesh Malani.
Winnie has over 19 years of experience in the e-commerce and property industry, formerly working in giants like Alibaba.com and PropertyGuru, where she was the Managing Director.
With a strong track record of growing and launching businesses in new markets, she will be in charge of integrating the Caarly team into the Carousell platform.
Rakesh was the former CFO of Indian ad-tech company Komli Media. “A tech entrepreneur at heart”, he was also a co-founder of a tech startup, and has worked with several tech companies – one of which went public on NASDAQ and got acquired for US$1.25 billion.
He will be executing capital strategies to help Carousell “cement its position as a global classified leader”, and will also be developing the company’s growth and monetisation plans.
There’s No Stopping Carousell
Just last month, Carousell acqui-hired safety app WatchOverMe, and their recent acquisition definitely looks like the startup is making bold, and strategic moves into covering almost every aspect that a regular user might need from a classifieds space.
Feature Image Credit: Huffington Post
