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Droom, which has emerged as the dominant online marketplace for automobiles, is aiming to double its annualised sales and gross merchandise value from about ₹1,500 crore at present to ₹2,500-3,000 crore by March 2017.
Claiming it to be the fastest growing consumer internet company in India, Sandeep Aggarwal, Droom’s founder and Chief Executive told BusinessLine that within 25 months of inception, the company registered a growth rate of 300 per cent.
Fast growth“There is huge traction across all major metros and tier-II locations such as Coimbatore, Kochi and Vishakapatnam among others,” he said.
From just one city (New Delhi) at start in 2014, Droom has since strengthened its presence to cover 420 cities and towns in the country.
It is present in 86 cities in the south. Aggarwal plans to extend it to 150 by the close of this calendar year.
The company is targeting annualised gross sales of ₹4,500 to 5,000 crore by December 2017.
Aggarwal said, “The current experience of buying and selling an automobile is completely broken, antiquated and full of pitfalls. To address this, we took an innovative approach by bringing in more transparency, building trust and mitigating information asymmetry. It is technology driven; we have created tools and the pricing is centralised.”
Asked about the impact of demonetisation, he said, “The business dropped 45 per cent in October – November, but picked up in the months that followed. We registered a 25 per cent growth towards end-December and another 3 per cent in January.”
“We scroll through plenty of data and arrive at the price in a most transparent way.
The details are shared with the prospective buyer; we collect 2 per cent transaction charge from the buyer,” he said.
Funding detailsThe company has raised $45 million (₹325 crore approximately) in four rounds. Aggarwal said Droom is planning to raise the next round of capital in 2017. “It could happen in the next 6 months. We are looking at $50 million or so.”
The funds have gone into development of the company's technology platform, expansion in India and SE Asia and into building the leadership team.
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