Portfolio

Frontier Car Group closes $41 million Series B funding round to accelerate growth of used-car marketplaces in emerging markets

BY BALDERTON

Frontier Car Group today announced their Series B raise of $41M from Balderton, TPG Growth, automotive funds Fraser McCombs Capital, and AutoTech Ventures. The company additionally raised $17M in debt financing from leading institutions and banks.

FCG is based in Berlin, and develops, launches, invests in and operates used-car marketplaces within emerging markets. The company is led by 24-year-old CEO Sujay Tyle, and will use the new funding to become the dominant used-car trading house in emerging markets across the world. It plans to apply a particular growth-focus on Africa and Latin America, while also making investments in Asia.

With full-scale operations launched in September 2016, FCG's unique technical platform and strategy has, to date, enabled the creation of localised, used-car businesses in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

For example, in Latin America, FCG has built Mexico’s number one used car marketplace, VendeTuAuto (www.vendetuauto.com) and Chile's VendeNosTuAuto (www.vendenostuauto.com).

In Asia, FCG has built Pakistan's CarFirst (www.carfirst.com), and Indonesia's BeliMobilGue.co.id (www.belimobilgue.co.id).

As of May 2018, FCG has already achieved an annualised gross merchandise volume of close to 200 million USD through the launch of hundreds of purchase centres across these markets, and the development of an innovative auction platform for car dealers to bid for cars in real-time.

Sujay Tyle, co-founder & CEO, Frontier Car Group

Sujay Tyle, co-founder & CEO of FCG comments: “FCG is bringing safety, transparency, and convenience to the used car ecosystems of various emerging markets. This round, which was vastly oversubscribed, is a testament to the sheer size and nascency of the industry — and our team’s ability to disrupt it. We will be expanding quickly in our current markets and regions as we gain more and more market share where we are today. The six local companies that we have built so far all have the potential to become billion dollar entities in itself."

Daniel Waterhouse, who has led all Balderton's investments in Frontier Car Group, said “Balderton first invested in FCG a little under 2 years ago and it is staggering what the team have achieved in such a short time, getting to significant scale and building a platform that is capable of being leveraged in many different operating environments. We are excited to further support the company and look forward to the next chapter of this extraordinary story.”

Balderton first invested in FCG a little under 2 years ago and it is staggering what the team have achieved in such a short time, getting to significant scale and building a platform that is capable of being leveraged in many different operating environments. We are excited to further support the company and look forward to the next chapter of this extraordinary story.

Daniel Waterhouse, Partner, Balderton Capital

Read more about the story in:

  • Techcrunch 'Frontier Car Group raises another $58M for its used-car marketplace for emerging economies'
  • The Wall Street Journal 'Frontier Car Group Builds International Used-Cars Marketplace'
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