'From zero to 100': Carro makes significant impact on automotive industry

By using technology to disrupt the automotive industry in Southeast Asia, Carro, an online car marketplace, has reportedly made a significant impact in the industry since it appeared. Manit Ghogar, who heads Carro's Thailand business was also quoted saying, “I went from zero to 100 almost overnight”. According to reports, the founders of Carro were motivated to start the company by their unfavourable experiences buying used cars in Singapore and the United States.

While talking to an international media outlet, CEO Aaron Tan said that the founders felt there was no dealer of middleman in the in-market they could trust and therefore went about using data and technology to set-up the online site for car buyers and sellers to deal directly with each other.  The company's platform created transparency and had tools and services to give buyers and sellers peace of mind. Carro offers end-to-end services for customers and removes the involvement of the middleman.

The company has been reportedly expanding fast and helps its users buy and sell cars. It also includes services like financing, insurance, warranty, workshop and roadside assistance. On the company's official website, it also has built a fair-price evaluation tool called graph.sg. It further also has an autobody workshop search app Carro Workshop and has recently launched on-demand vehicle trade-in auction marketplace called Carro Express. The company recently also launched a car subscription scheme where users pay a monthly fee for using a car based on the hours of usage per day. 

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Future plans of the company

The start-up company is also considering a bid for a digital banking license from the Singapore government. According to international media reports, part of their plans would be to use cloud-based platforms, big data and data science to provide Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) with digital-first banking experience. The company has approximately raised $100 million. Its investors reportedly include SoftBank Ventures Asia, Dietrich Foundation, NCORE Ventures, Insignia Ventures, Hanwha Asset Management, B Capital Group, Singtel Innov8, Golden Gate Ventures and Alpha JWC. The company now operates in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. 

In an interview Ghogar said, "Seeing the people who haven't come from this industry, but really are thriving, and being able to build something which hasn't been built before in the country, disrupting an industry which has been plagued with all sorts of issues for the past decade”. 

(With ANI inputs)

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