SheerDrive, a Mumbai-based digital used-car platform, has successfully closed its seed round funding with Group Landmark, a TPG portfolio company, and India's leading automobile retail chain with more than 80 facilities across 27 cities.
SheerDrive aims to transform and streamline the way pre-owned cars are bought and sold. It offers an online platform for real-time pricing with the goal to drive the used car market higher. With its array of new digital tools and services specifically designed for OEMs, new and used car retailers, SheerDrive seeks to solve legacy issues of convenience, transparency, and pricing. Auto dealers will form a key part of the value chain.
Shedding light on the platform, Mr. Ravi Mehra, the CEO, and Co-founder of SheerDrive commented, "We believe our advanced digital tools, resources, and unique car sales and exchange propositions will not only drive better new car sales but also take the consumer buying experience, digitally and in-store, to a new high. We can effectively resolve the problems of dealing with pre-owned cars and bring about much-needed infrastructure to car dealerships."
Mr. Ravi Mehra is a veteran in the pre-owned vehicle space has been a part of the core team at CarTrade for many years, he also spent time in Africa as Head of the Cars division for the ROAM Group, which is the leading online marketplaces company in Sub Saharan Africa.
Further commenting on this development, Harshal Desai, Director, Group Landmark said, "The association with SheerDrive fits into our strategy of partnering with tech-enabled companies in the automobile value chain and SheerDrive's offerings fit well with our digital growth goal. At Group Landmark we have made digital as a cornerstone for the future. With the pandemic further accelerating the demand for pre-owned cars (due to inclination for personal modes of transportation), we, definitely, see merit in creating a value-driven digital platform which benefits everyone in the ecosystem."
This is the second investment of this type made by Group Landmark, having previously invested into the aftermarket garage aggregation platform Pitstop earlier this year.