Updated with information received from VavaCars.
Digital auto retailer VavaCars has secured $37M in Series C funding from a combination of new and existing backers, including its founding investor, Dutch commodity trader Vitol. The latest funding means that the company has “brought over $100M of foreign direct investment to Turkey,” VavaCars co-founder and CEO Lawrence Merritt wrote in a post on LinkedIn. He added that “We expect this to be our last funding round before moving on to the profitability phase.”
The auto startup launched in Turkey during 2019 and the following year in Pakistan, where it wound up its operations in June. VavaCars pioneered online secondhand car sales in Turkey, selling both to dealers via its proprietary auction platform and direct to consumers. “In the first half of 2022, VavaCars sold more than 20,000 cars and generated in excess of $500 million in revenue,” according to a statement issued to the AIM Group.
“We have redesigned the way consumers can buy and sell vehicles in Turkey … We want everyone to be able to buy and sell vehicles without any questions, without worries and without any problems,” Merritt wrote in a separate LinkedIn post.
Its latest investment round will be used to accelerate growth in target markets, according to VavaCars, which has already spent $200M setting up inspection and reconditioning centers in Turkey. Its main competitors include auto marketplaces LetGo Turkey’s Otoplus.com and Arabam.com, as well as horizontal Sahibinden.com, which has a thriving auto category.
