Former Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar has invested an undisclosed amount in pre-owned cars platform Spinny, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
Besides being a strategic investor in the company, Tendulkar is also Spinny’s lead brand endorser, the statement said.
“Entrepreneurs of today are creating solutions that cater to this ambition. The team has adopted timeless values to achieve excellence in their business – trust, transparency and integrity,” said Tendulkar.
Earlier this year, Spinny had announced its association with Indian badminton player PV Sindhu. Spinny’s customers, along with the endorsers, will lead a series of marketing initiatives over the next year, the company added.
“We strive to instill Sachin’s abilities in everything we do and Spinny’s outlook to solve real customer problems. Having him onboard with Spinny is absolutely heart-warming, and we are proud to welcome our newest captain of Squad Spinny, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar,” said Niraj Singh, founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Spinny.
Spinny, a used car retailing platform in India operated by Valuedrive Technologies Pvt Ltd, which is backed by Tiger Global Management, recently raised ₹1,849.45 crore ($248.6 million) as part of its Series E funding round, making it India’s 39th unicorn (startups touching $1 billion valuation).
The funding round was co-led by existing investor Tiger Global and new investor Abu Dhabi Growth Fund, according to regulatory filings, valuing Spinny at $1.8 billion. The company had said that the fresh capital raised will be used for growth, expansion, marketing and general corporate purposes.
Gurugram-headquartered Spinny was founded in 2015 by Singh, Mohit Gupta and Ramanshu Mahuar. It has 15 car hubs that operate across eight cities — Delhi-NCR, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad.
The current funding round comes after Spinny’s back-to-back Series C and Series D funding rounds this year.
Earlier in July, Spinny raised ₹771.5 crore ($103.3 million) in a new funding round led by Tiger Global. This came just months after it closed its Series C funding led by General Catalyst earlier in April.
Spinny acquired rival Truebil in a cash-and-equity deal in August last year. The acquisition came just months after the pre-owned cars platform had raised $43.7 million in its Series B funding led by Fundamentum Partnership.
Prior to this, Spinny raised around $13.2 million in a Series A round led by Elevation Capital and Accel in 2019. The platform raised $1 million (around ₹6.4 crore) in a seed round led by Blume Ventures in June 2017.
The broader used cars marketplace has witnessed significant action in 2021.CarTrade became the first company from the sector to float its initial public offering (IPO) and list on the stock exchanges this year while earlier this month Droom filed draft papers with the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to go public.
Last month, Girnar Software Pvt. Ltd. which operates online portal for new and used cars, CarDekho, also turned into a unicorn as it raised $250 million as a part of its latest Series E fundraise.
In September, Cars24 Services, which had turned unicorn last year, closed a $450 million round of funding led by DST Global, Falcon Edge and SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
