After raising millions from investors, CarTrade is roaring loud with plans to list on bourses

CarTrade, the online auto classifieds platform which raised $145 million (Rs 960 crore) from Temasek Holdings, March Capital and Warburg Pincus earlier this year, is now planning to list on the bourses in the coming three years.

"We are operationally profitable and are targeting increasing revenue by 2.5 times this year," Vinay Sanghi, founder and CEO, told ET.

As per CarTrade claims, it sells around 25,000 new cars and 30,000-40,000 pre-owned cars on its platform every month. As for the sources of revenue, there are three ways from where it earns: subscription fees from dealers registered on the platform, ad payments from automobile companies and fees from vehicle auctions that are conducted on the site.

Ever since it was founded in 2010, CarTrade has partnered with more than 10,000 dealers of both new and used cars, lists more than 225,000 used cars for sale and auctions over 250,000 vehicles to the wholesale market every year. Because of this magnitude, it registers a monthly number of around 35 million unique visitors across its platforms.

As part of its expansion plans, it is looking forward to introducing financing options by June and is in talks with multiple banks regarding the same.

"The pre-owned car market, which is now sized at around 4 million units, is growing at the rate of 12-15 per cent. However, auto finance penetration in the used-car market is only about 10 per cent," said Sanghi. "We believe we can organise this market. There is a lot of potential to grow."