The Carwow Group recently received £41 million in funding from Bessemer Venture Partners to accelerate its growth in the UK, Germany, and Spain. The company, which purchased Auto Express, Carbuyer, evo, and DrivingElectric earlier this year, has previously raised $184 million, according to Crunchbase, and is now valued at £250m. Existing investors such as Accel, Balderton, Episode 1, and Vitruvian also participated in the funding round. Over the past few years, Carwow has been assisting its 10 million customers in buying and selling cars. In 2020 alone, almost £3 billion worth of cars were purchased on the platform, and £1.8 billion worth of cars were listed for sale through the Sell My Car service. Carwow intends to utilise the new investment to expand its Strategic SMC service and attract more customers to its dealer partners, as well as to enhance payment processes and develop its transportation offerings. Carwow will also be introducing the SMC service to its German operation in 2025.
Carwow has grown tremendously in the first half of the year, with its revenue increasing by 56%. The company will be significantly expanding its product and engineering teams over the next few months to deliver the next phase of growth. John Veichmanis, CEO of the Carwow Group, expressed his excitement about the funding, believing it to be a milestone moment for Carwow. The group will use this funding to bring its proposition to its businesses in Germany and Spain.
Carwow, founded in 2013 by David Santoro, Alexandra Margolis, and James Hind, has David Santoro serving as CTO, Alexandra Margolis as creative director, and James Hind as executive director. Alex Ferrara, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, praised Carwow’s content expertise, creative reviews, and drag races and believes the company’s focus on using its content to drive its commerce services through dealer partnerships makes it unique and compelling in the category.
This latest investment round was advised by Arma Partners.
