Droom has sold two-wheelers including scooters ranging between INR 50-60k and motorbikes with an Average Selling Price (ASP) of approximately INR 60k. Playing a crucial role in this promising market, Droom has generated a Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) of approximately INR 32 crores, contributing to around 7.4% of the overall GMV.

Brands like Hero, Honda and Yamaha enjoyed domination in the market share of motorcycles and bikes, comprising around 95%. Honda, on the other hand, sold the most number of scooters, comprising 85% of share in the sales. The top selling models among motorcycles and bikes were Splendor Plus, Passion Pro i3s, CB Shine and FZS fi whereas Activa 5G emerged as the best-selling model among scooters.

One of the major reasons behind this surge in sale was the fact that Droom came up with a bounty of attractive offers amidst a market of car dealers struggling with high interest rates, high base effect, surged prices and muted consumer sentiments. Droom offered a discount of INR 25, 000 along with an interest rate as low as 8.99% on financing options. Additionally, Droom offered free one-year roadside assistance and a buyer security of up to INR 50 lakh on all pre-owned vehicles that were to be sold through the platform with a validity period of 6 months. Such festive offers led to an immense retention with a majority of demand for new vehicles in the two-wheeler category, deeming for around 96% of the orders in this segment.

Acknowledging the robust success, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom remarked, “India is world’s largest two-wheeler market. In less than one year we have created the largest assortment of two wheelers online in India combined with auto loan, Insurance, RTO, and Assistance from auto experts. We think that Droom can be among the largest two-wheeler seller globally independent of channel in next three years.”

While cities like Delhi, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad were among the top 5 cities where these two-wheelers were sold, one of the most surprising factors was the emergence of smaller cities like Ludhiana, Vadodara, Surat, Alwar and Bilaspur among the top 10 cities showing orders in October.

During this festive month, brands like Hero, Honda and Yamaha enjoyed domination in the market share of motorcycles and bikes, comprising around 95 per cent while Honda sold the most number of scooters, comprising 85 per cent of share in the sales, Droom said in a release.

Acknowledging the success, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom remarked, “India is world’s largest two-wheeler market. In less than one year we have created the largest assortment of two wheelers online in India combined with auto loan, Insurance, RTO, and Assistance from auto experts. We think that Droom can be among the largest two-wheeler seller globally independent of channel in next three years.”

Sale of two-wheelers was a significant contributor to the revenue generated by Droom, accounting for around 45 per cent of the same in the previous month.

The company has also said that hosting attractive offers amidst a market of car dealers struggling with high interest rates, high base effect, surged prices and muted consumer sentiments helped in surging the sale during the festive season.

Delhi, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad were among the top five cities where major volumes two-wheelers were sold, Droom said.

Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal is believed to back cab aggregator Ola with a $100 million investment after exiting Flipkart post its buyout by Walmart. Recently, Freecharge co-founder Kunal Shah announced his next start-up Cred, a platform to reward creditworthy individuals. Shah follows in the steps of Ashish Kashyap, founder of travel portal Ibibo, who recently announced his next venture, INDwealth, a wealth management start-up.

The rise in serial entrepreneurs heralds a healthy recipe for success, say experts. A working paper by researchers at Stanford University and at the Copenhagen Business School shows that serial entrepreneurs record faster success, are 39% more productive and have 67% higher sales than first-time entrepreneurs.

Venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur Bala Parthasarathy, who is co-founder and CEO of MoneyTap, says, “A good ecosystem like Silicon Valley has a healthy mix of both first-time and serial entrepreneurs. While starting a successful company once doesn’t guarantee repeat success, it certainly provides ballast to the entire environment, tempering it with euphoria and helping attract more investors into the country who are drawn by previous successes.”

It is necessary to begin your entrepreneurial journey with a well-defined goal or a purpose and to not let the enthusiasm blind you. Having a clear vision not only keeps one motivated but also aides in working towards that direction. You need to know what exact problem or need-gap your business will address and make a thorough plan and devise strategies accordingly. A clear vision with the right planning lays a strong foundation for any entrepreneurial venture.

Despite having a unique business model, many businesses fail due to the absence of a long-term strategy. Answering the “what” and defining the “how” of their business can help entrepreneurs in implementing a robust growth blueprint. Not only does this provide a coherent future vision for your start-up, but also allows you to plan ahead for contingencies and stay on top of any unforeseen changes in market dynamics. You are additionally able to map your current performance against predefined business goals, as well as to identify which business goals are no longer feasible. Such an approach allows your start-up to be flexible and agile while providing major growth markers as guiding milestones for your operations.

It is necessary to begin your entrepreneurial journey with a well-defined goal or a purpose and to not let the enthusiasm blind you. Having a clear vision not only keeps one motivated but also aides in working towards that direction. You need to know what exact problem or need-gap your business will address and make a thorough plan and devise strategies accordingly. A clear vision with the right planning lays a strong foundation for any entrepreneurial venture.

Despite having a unique business model, many businesses fail due to the absence of a long-term strategy. Answering the “what” and defining the “how” of their business can help entrepreneurs in implementing a robust growth blueprint. Not only does this provide a coherent future vision for your start-up, but also allows you to plan ahead for contingencies and stay on top of any unforeseen changes in market dynamics. You are additionally able to map your current performance against predefined business goals, as well as to identify which business goals are no longer feasible. Such an approach allows your start-up to be flexible and agile while providing major growth markers as guiding milestones for your operations.

Online automobile marketplace Droom Thursday said it has raised USD 30 million (over Rs 200 crore) led by the family office of Japan-based investor, Joe Hirao. The company, which has raised USD 125 million in funding till date, is also lining up an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) repurchase programme, entailing a spend of about Rs 50 crore.

"We have been on a fantastic growth trajectory, which is reflected in the confidence of our investors. We have an annualised gross merchandise value (GMV) run rate of USD 750 million and are doing USD 20 million annual revenue run rate," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told .

He added that the company has managed to keep its expenses under control and expects to hit profitability in the second half of 2019.

The company aims to double the GMV to USD 1.4 billion by end of 2018 and to USD 3.5 billion by 2019. The company plans to go for an IPO by 2020.

"Our employees have played a key role in this journey. The ESOP buyback will see us buying back shares from over 60 employees, and these people have been with the us for over three years or more," he said.

Aggarwal added that the repurchase initiative will entail an expense of about Rs 50 crore and will be completed by Diwali.

Talking about the fresh funding, he said the proceeds will be used to strengthen the platform and offerings like inspection and credit services.

"We aim to simultaneously strengthen and diversify our services such as inspection, Droom Credit, C2C and C2B marketplace formats, enable a smooth online transaction and provide more competitive terms and interest rates to customers through Droom Credit," he said.

Aggarwal added that the company is also looking to invest in advanced, emerging technologies such as IoT for its ECO segment and Blockchain for its credit facilitation services.

He, however, declined to comment on the valuation of the company.

In May, Droom had raised USD 30 million in series D, led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation (a Toyota Group firm), and Japan-based Digital Garage.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is an online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and related services.

Aggarwal said the company also expects to start its international operations by the end of the year.

"We are ready to launch in Thailand and Malaysia and we should be in these two countries by end of 2018. Different countries have different regulations and we will ensure that we comply with the local rules," he explained.

Droom has previously stated that it is investing USD 8-10 million towards international expansion and that the India business would continue to account for over 90 per cent of the company's revenues for the next two years.

The company also aims to expand its operations in 100 more Indian cities.

Droom is a Singapore Holding Company with subsidiaries in India and the US. Its other investors include Lightbox, Beenext, Beenos and Integrated Assets Management.

The Series E round of funding was led by the family office of Joe Hirao, founder of ZigExN, the Tokyo-headquartered company that owns and operates a number of content-focused websites, ranging from jobs information and search and real estate, to the used car listings segment.

Additionally, a second new investor has also entered the company’s cap table. While the name was not disclosed, it is believed to be the family office of the founder of one of Japan’s largest auto dealership chain

The company, according to Sandeep Aggarwal, chief executive of Droom, will use the proceeds to further ramp up Droom Credit, its fin-tech product launched last year, and which provides auto financing to, both, dealers and buyers in the used car and bike segment.

“The latest round of fund will help us in our expansion goals and, accomplishment of our growth objectives and scaling up our technology to build efficiency. A substantial portion will also go towards building up Eco, the company’s automobile inspection services,” Aggarwal told ET.

According to the CEO, Eco, which was a marketplace model, connecting customers with mechanics, will also now have mechanics, who are on the Droom payroll, providing doorstep services.

Droom’s existing investors, which includes, Toyota Tsusho Corp, a unit of Toyota Motor Corp, the world’s largest auto maker, Digital Garage and venture capital firms, Lightbox, Beenos and Beenext, among others, have not participated in the latest round of equity financing.

It is, however, yet unclear if there has been any secondary transactions, along with the infusion of primary capital. Including this latest fund infusion, Droom has now raised $125 million in funding, since inception. It also values the four-year-old startup at about $750 million, post money.

The company is also undertaking a buyback of shares from employees. Aggarwal told ET that the Droom Board had approved a buyback up to Rs 50 crore, with the shares being acquired by the company at its last round’s valuation, which is estimated to be about $550 million.

“There are about 63 employees, who have spent over three years with the company, and hold stock options. We have decided to give them liquidity,” Aggarwal said.

The development comes about four months after Toyota Motor Corp, the world’s largest auto maker, made its debut investment in India, after leading a $30 million equity financing round in the automobile marketplace and auto services startup, and which was co-led by the latter’s existing backer, Digital Garage, in May.

The company, which is expected to enter the Malaysian and Thai markets by the end of the calendar year, reported revenue of $11 million in financial year 2017-18, up from $3.8 million in the previous fiscal.

Online automobile marketplace Droom has raised $30 million in a Series E round led by the family office of Japanese investor Joe Hirao.

Another Japan-based family office also participated in the round. Droom declined to name the investor.

Hirao, founder of ZIGExN, has backed several real estate and automobile ventures.

According to Sandeep Agarwal, co-founder and chief executive officer of Droom, Hirao is in talks with 20 Indian ventures and may invest in some of them.

In May, Droom had raised $30 million from Toyota Tsusho Corp., a unit of Japan’s automobile major Toyota Group, and Digital Garage. Founded in 2014, Gurugram-based Droom has so far raised $125 million. It plans to go public by 2020.

It plans to utilize the money to boost its credit services, besides its inspection and certification services.

It is also looking to invest aggressively in developing its machine learning and artificial-intelligence capabilities.

“The current Series E funding gives an immense fillip to us as we aim to simultaneously strengthen and diversify our services such as inspection, C2C and C2B marketplace formats, enable smooth online transaction and provide more competitive terms and interest rates to customers through Droom credit,” said Agarwal.

The start-up is targeting loan disbursements worth ₹150 crore in FY19 through its credit offering.

Droom’s platform serves as an online marketplace to buy and sell cars and two-wheelers. It also offers services such as fair value calculator, roadside assistance and auto loans.

The company is backed by Ellison Investments, an Asia-based investment manager; Hong Kong-based Integrated Asset Management Asia Ltd and several independent investors from China and Hong Kong.

It also counts Lightbox, Beenext, Beenos and Digital Garage as existing investors.

Droom said that it will liquidate employees stock options (ESOPS) worth ₹50 crore before Diwali this year.

“We will be allowing employees who have stayed for more than three years to liquidate their ESOPs. We thought it would be a good way to reward our people,” said Sandeep Agarwal.

Droom has also been eyeing international markets for long and will be operational in Thailand and Malaysia by the end of this year.

The company has allocated $8 million for expanding its footprint in overseas markets.

In India, Droom has forged a partnership with Swiggy to supply two-wheelers to its delivery fleet. Droom also has tie-ups with Ubermoto and over 20 other manufacturers, including Triumph and Hero Cycles.

According to Agarwal, the domestic online automobile transaction market is about $1 billion and is expected to grow to $20 billion in the next two years.

Droom, which competes with the likes of Cars24 and Carwale, claims to have a 75% share in the online automobile transaction market.

Droom was launched in 2014 by Sandeep Aggarwal, a co-founder of e-commerce firm ShopClues. The firm is registered in Singapore as Droom Pte. Ltd.

“Droom has done a fabulous job in creating India’s largest and 21st century online automobile transactional platform by leading the journey of reinventing pre-owned automobile transactions. The way they have created robust technology-based ecosystem services tools to address the fragmented and unorganized used automobile market, loan and insurance, and multiple marketplace formats such as B2B, C2C, C2B and C2C is very innovative and we are very happy to be a part of this great journey,” said Hirao.

The company, which has raised $125 million in funding till date, is also lining up an ESOP repurchase programme, entailing a spend of about Rs 500 million.

"We have been on a fantastic growth trajectory, which is reflected in the confidence of our investors. We have an annualised gross merchandise value (GMV) run rate of $750 million and are doing $20 million annual revenue run rate," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told PTI.

He added that the company has managed to keep its expenses under control and expects to hit profitability in the second half of 2019.

The company aims to double the GMV to $1.4 billion by end of 2018 and to $3.5 billion by 2019. The company plans to go for an IPO by 2020.

"Our employees have played a key role in this journey. The ESOP buyback will see us buying back shares from over 60 employees, and these people have been with us for over three years or more," he said.

Aggarwal added that the repurchase initiative will entail an expense of about Rs 500 million and will be completed by Diwali.

Talking about the fresh funding, he said the proceeds will be used to strengthen the platform and offerings like inspection and credit services.

"We aim to simultaneously strengthen and diversify our services such as inspection, Droom Credit, C2C and C2B marketplace formats, enable a smooth online transaction and provide more competitive terms and interest rates to customers through Droom Credit," he said.

Aggarwal added that the company is also looking to invest in advanced, emerging technologies such as IoT for its ECO segment and Blockchain for its credit facilitation services.

He, however, declined to comment on the valuation of the company.

In May, Droom had raised $30 million in series D, led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation (a Toyota Group firm), and Japan-based Digital Garage.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is an online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and related services.

Aggarwal said the company also expects to start its international operations by the end of the year.

"We are ready to launch in Thailand and Malaysia and we should be in these two countries by end of 2018. Different countries have different regulations and we will ensure that we comply with the local rules," he explained.

Droom has previously stated that it is investing $8-10 million towards international expansion and that the India business would continue to account for over 90 per cent of the company's revenues for the next two years.

The company also aims to expand its operations in 100 more Indian cities.

Droom is a Singapore Holding Company with subsidiaries in India and the US. Its other investors include Lightbox, Beenext, Beenos and Integrated Assets Management.

Online automobile marketplace Droom Thursday said it has raised USD 30 million (over Rs 200 crore) led by the family office of Japan-based investor, Joe Hirao.

The company, which has raised USD 125 million in funding till date, is also lining up an ESOP repurchase programme, entailing a spend of about Rs 50 crore.

“We have been on a fantastic growth trajectory, which is reflected in the confidence of our investors. We have an annualised gross merchandise value (GMV) run rate of USD 750 million and are doing USD 20 million annual revenue run rate,” Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told PTI.

He added that the company has managed to keep its expenses under control and expects to hit profitability in the second half of 2019.

The company aims to double the GMV to USD 1.4 billion by end of 2018 and to USD 3.5 billion by 2019. The company plans to go for an IPO by 2020.

“Our employees have played a key role in this journey. The ESOP buyback will see us buying back shares from over 60 employees, and these people have been with the us for over three years or more,” he said.

Aggarwal added that the repurchase initiative will entail an expense of about Rs 50 crore and will be completed by Diwali.

Talking about the fresh funding, he said the proceeds will be used to strengthen the platform and offerings like inspection and credit services.

“We aim to simultaneously strengthen and diversify our services such as inspection, Droom Credit, C2C and C2B marketplace formats, enable a smooth online transaction and provide more competitive terms and interest rates to customers through Droom Credit,” he said.

Aggarwal added that the company is also looking to invest in advanced, emerging technologies such as IoT for its ECO segment and Blockchain for its credit facilitation services.

He, however, declined to comment on the valuation of the company.

In May, Droom had raised USD 30 million in series D, led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation (a Toyota Group firm), and Japan-based Digital Garage.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is an online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and related services.

Aggarwal said the company also expects to start its international operations by the end of the year.

“We are ready to launch in Thailand and Malaysia and we should be in these two countries by end of 2018. Different countries have different regulations and we will ensure that we comply with the local rules,” he explained.

Droom has previously stated that it is investing USD 8-10 million towards international expansion and that the India business would continue to account for over 90 per cent of the company’s revenues for the next two years.

The company also aims to expand its operations in 100 more Indian cities.

Droom is a Singapore Holding Company with subsidiaries in India and the US. Its other investors include Lightbox, Beenext, Beenos and Integrated Assets Management.

The company will use the fund for its international expansion, certification services, scaling up its operations in 100 more cities and its financial offering Droom Credit.

The company’s net revenue is $20 million and achieved gross merchandise value of $750 million. Droom plans to go for an IPO by 2020.

The company, which has raised USD 125 million in funding till date, is also lining up an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) repurchase programme, entailing a spend of about Rs 50 crore.

"We have been on a fantastic growth trajectory, which is reflected in the confidence of our investors. We have an annualised gross merchandise value (GMV) run rate of USD 750 million and are doing USD 20 million annual revenue run rate," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told .

He added that the company has managed to keep its expenses under control and expects to hit profitability in the second half of 2019.

The company aims to double the GMV to USD 1.4 billion by end of 2018 and to USD 3.5 billion by 2019. The company plans to go for an IPO by 2020.

"Our employees have played a key role in this journey. The ESOP buyback will see us buying back shares from over 60 employees, and these people have been with the us for over three years or more," he said.

Aggarwal added that the repurchase initiative will entail an expense of about Rs 50 crore and will be completed by Diwali.

Talking about the fresh funding, he said the proceeds will be used to strengthen the platform and offerings like inspection and credit services.

"We aim to simultaneously strengthen and diversify our services such as inspection, Droom Credit, C2C and C2B marketplace formats, enable a smooth online transaction and provide more competitive terms and interest rates to customers through Droom Credit," he said.

Aggarwal added that the company is also looking to invest in advanced, emerging technologies such as IoT for its ECO segment and Blockchain for its credit facilitation services.

He, however, declined to comment on the valuation of the company.

In May, Droom had raised USD 30 million in series D, led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation (a Toyota Group firm), and Japan-based Digital Garage.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is an online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and related services.

Aggarwal said the company also expects to start its international operations by the end of the year.

"We are ready to launch in Thailand and Malaysia and we should be in these two countries by end of 2018. Different countries have different regulations and we will ensure that we comply with the local rules," he explained.

Droom has previously stated that it is investing USD 8-10 million towards international expansion and that the India business would continue to account for over 90 per cent of the company's revenues for the next two years.

The company also aims to expand its operations in 100 more Indian cities.

Droom is a Singapore Holding Company with subsidiaries in India and the US. Its other investors include Lightbox, Beenext, Beenos and Integrated Assets Management.

The company plans to use the Series E funds for investing heavily in developing Droom Credit, its marketplace for used vehicles loans. It aims to bolster its pan India inspection services and drive further adoption for certification services.

The total funding for Droom now nears $125 Mn since its inception. The Series E fundraise comes soon after $30 Mn Series D round of funding led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC), a Toyota Group Corporation company and Japan-based Digital Garage. At this point, the company also revealed its plans to go for an IPO by 2020. Earlier, the company raised $20 Mn in July 2017 and prior to that, undisclosed (reported to be around $30 Mn) Series B funding in June 2016.

Sandeep Aggarwal founded Droom in 2014, and Rishab Malik later joined him in 2015, to enable customers to buy and sell new and old automobiles and follows all four business models i.e. B2B, B2C, C2C, C2B. With the latest funding, Droom team is looking to further expand its presence into C2C, C2B marketplace and strengthen its network in more than 100 cities.

The company offers a wide range of categories from bicycle to planes. It also provides other automobile services such as warranty, RSA, insurance and auto loan. The company also uses advanced technologies like de-facto pricing standard, full circle trust score, among others. Recently, the company also expanded its portfolio into electric vehicles.

Here’s a quick look into some numbers of Droom:

1. The company claims to record nearly $750 Mn in gross revenue
2. $20 Mn in net revenue with the listed GMV of $6 Bn
3. It has recorded more than 250k auto dealers in more than 550 cities across India on its platform with more than 33 Mn monthly visitors
4. The company aims to double its gross merchandise value to $1.4 Bn by end of 2018 and $3.5 Bn by 2019

Droom has been helping their automobile dealers increase their consumer base and provides them with vehicle checks using its advanced data science algorithms. It charges an annual subscription to dealers and is also looking to earn revenue by introducing automobile credit, which will be provided to the consumers.

Some of the features Droom offers inclue:

1. Orange Book Value feature, which gives the fair price of bikes and cars in the country
2. An Auto inspection feature will also be rolled out for dealers
3. Droom History, with about 200 Mn vehicle history records
4. Droom Discovery for dozens of pre-buying tools
5. Droom Credit, a marketplace for used vehicles loans

Automobile Marketplace: Bringing Offline Deals Online

With the increasing dependence of Indians on technology and growing trust in the segment, players like Girnarsoft, Cartisan etc have been leveraging the ease of online deals to make automobile selling easy.

In the automobile segment, Droom competes with the likes of Cartisan, Bumper, Pitstop, among others.

Girnar Soft, which has its offices in Jaipur, Hyderabad, Gurugram and Mumbai, controls automobile portals like CarDekho.com and Gaadi.com. The company recently raised $3.6 Mn (INR 25 Cr) in debt fund from Trifecta Venture Debt Fund-I.

Earlier in Febrauary 2017, a Mumbai-based online marketplace for buying and selling secondhand cars Truebil had secured $3 Mn from Chinese VC firm Shunwei Capital.

At the same time, Mumbai-based online automobile classifieds platform, CarTrade had raised $55 Mn in a fresh round of funding led by Singapore-based Temasek, and a US-based family office.

One of the major players in the segment is OLX, an online classifieds marketplace for auto, real estate and goods and services, which registered a 50% growth in the number of buyers in the pre-owned cars category last year.

According to an IBEF report, the Indian auto industry, one of the largest in the world, accounts for 7.1% of the country’s GDP.

The report has pegged the Indian automobile market at $125 Bn. Out of which, $100 Bn is the estimated share of automobile sales and remaining $25 Bn includes services.

It is expected to grow at a rate of about 10% to a whopping $225 Bn by 2020. With players like Droom making offline transactions come online, the sector has a huge potential for investors and customers alike.

The round was led by the family office of Japanese investor Joe Hirao, who is the founder of multi-business firm ZIGExN, the statement said.

The Series E fundraising takes the total that the company has mobilised since inception to $125 million, the statement said.

The online marketplace will use the fresh capital to develop Droom Credit, expand its doorstep inspection services and for its certification services Orange Book Value, History, ECO and to build its consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-business marketplaces.

The company also plans to invest the money for tech advancements including developing its machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities for its products.

“Droom is also looking to invest in advanced, emerging technologies such as IoT for its ECO segment and blockchain for its credit facilitation services,” said founder and chief executive Sandeep Aggarwal.

The fresh fundraise comes shortly after the company in May raised $30 million (Rs 204 crore) in a Series D round led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation and existing investor Digital Garage of Japan.

Droom had received $20 million last July in a Series C round led by Integrated Asset Management (Asia) Ltd and Digital Garage. In July 2016, it had raised an undisclosed amount in a Series B round from venture capital fund Beenext, Digital Garage, Lightbox, Beenos, and others.

Aggarwal said that the latest round of funding will help the company meet its growth targets and scale up technology.

According to the statement, Droom aims to expand its operations to 100 cities across the country while also eyeing international presence. The company claims it has a 75% share of the online automobile market in India, generates close to $750 million in gross revenue and $20 million in net revenue.

The Gurugram-based company aims to double its gross merchandise value to $1.4 billion by the end of 2018 and $3.5 billion by 2019. The company plans to go for an IPO by 2020, the statement added.

In the online used-automobiles segment, Droom competes with Truebil, Zoomo, CarDekho, Carwale and CarTrade. Online classifieds platforms OLX and Quikr, too, operate in the segment.

Online automobile marketplace Droom has raised $30 million in its Series E funding round led by the Japanese investor Joe Hirao, founder of ZIGExN.

“The company is aiming for an IPO in Nasdaq by 2020 under Droom Singapore and the international expansions will be under an entity Droom International,” said Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom.

The funds will be used in Droom Credit, certification services such as OBV, History & ECO and others.

The company is heavily investing in developing Machine Learning and AI capabilities and emerging technologies such as IoT for its ECO segment and Blockchain for its credit facilitation services.

“The latest round of fund will help us in our expansion goals and accomplishment of our growth objective and scaling up our technology to build efficiency,” said Aggarwal.

The company aims to double its gross merchandise value to $1.4 billion by end of 2018 and $3.5 billion by 2019.

For its Diwali offers, Aggarwal said, “There will be multiple offers this year on the platform during this Diwali.”

The company is planning to launch in two international markets-- Malaysia and Thailand at the end of year 2018.

In May, Droom had raised USD 30 million in series D, led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation and Japan-based Digital Garage.

Droom, an online marketplace for used automobiles, has raised $30 million in its latest round of funding. With this, the total funds raised by the company amount to $125 million in six rounds. The current round was led by the family office of Japan-based investor Joe Hirao, founder, ZIGExN.

The company plans to use the funds to bolster its doorstep pan-India inspection service Droom Credit, certification services such as OBV, History and ECO and C2C and C2B marketplaces, the company informed.

Droom also plans to further strengthen its dominance in the online automobile marketplace segment and it will focus on scalability of its financial offerings, inspection, and marketplace formats beyond B2C. The company will also invest heavily in developing machine learning and AI capabilities for its vast portfolio of products. Besides this, Droom is also looking to invest in advanced and emerging technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) for its ECO segment and Blockchain for its credit facilitation services.

"The current series E funding gives an immense fillip to us as we aim to simultaneously strengthen and diversify our services such as inspection, Droom Credit, C2C and C2B marketplace formats, enable a smooth online transaction and provide more competitive terms and interest rates to customers through Droom Credit," said Founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal.

He further added "The latest round of fund will help us in our expansion goals and, accomplishment of our growth objectives and scaling up our technology to build efficiency. We are thankful to our investors who always believed in Droom and supported us relentlessly."

Earlier in the year, the company had raised $30 million funds in series D to expand internationally into nine South East Asian countries -- Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.

According to Aggarwal, they will start operations in two of these countries soon and in rest of them next year. The company is on a rapid expansion drive and plans to expand its operations in 100 more cities across the country. It also aims to double its gross merchandise value to $1.4 billion by the end of 2018 and $3.5 billion by 2019.

The latest round, led by the family office of Japanese investor Joe Hirao, founder of ZIGExN, takes the total funding raised by the company to $125 million.

In May, Droom had raised $30 million in its Series D round led by Japanese firms Toyota Tsusho Corporation and Digital Garage. The round also saw participation from Ellison Investments, an Asia-based investment manager, existing investors and a number of institutional investors and family offices from China, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.

Droom is a Singapore holding company with subsidiaries in India and the US. The company has so far raised close to $125 million over six rounds of funding. Its key investors include Lightbox, Beenext, Beenos, Digital Garage, Toyota Tsusho Corporation, Integrated Assets Management besides the latest addition of Joe Hirao’s family office.

“The current series E funding gives an immense fillip to us as we aim to simultaneously strengthen and diversify our services such as inspection, Droom Credit, C2C and C2B marketplace formats, enable a smooth online transaction and provide more competitive terms and interest rates to customers through Droom Credit,” said founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal.

“The latest round of funding will help us in our expansion goals and, accomplishment of our growth objectives and scaling up our technology to build efficiency,” he added.

According to an official statement, the tech-led platform will also invest heavily in further developing its machine learning and AI capabilities for its products. It is also looking to invest in advanced, emerging technologies such as IoT for its ECO segment and blockchain for its credit facilitation services.

Droom, which has also been planning to enter the overseas markets starting with Southeast Asia, is, however, yet to embark on the initiative. The company claims to be generating close to $750 million in gross revenue and $20 million in net revenue and has plans to tap the IPO market by 2020.

The announcement follows recent news from Droom rival Cars24 picking up $50 million funding from venture capital major Sequoia Capital India. Sequoia is also an investor in another online marketplace for used cars, CarDekho. According to media reports, Cars24’s existing investors – Cayman Islands-based Kingsway FCI Fund and Toronto-based KCK Global – also participated in the latest funding round. The round is expected to have valued the company at $250 million.

In March this year, Sequoia had also led a $2.5 million Series B funding round in CarDekho, taking the company’s total funding to more than $70 million since its inception ten years ago. Last year in February, CarTrade had raised $55 million (about Rs. 366 crore) in a fresh round of funding co-led by existing backer Temasek and a US-based family office.

The Sandeep Aggarwal-led company will use the Series E funds to strengthen the platform and offerings like inspection and its credit services called Droom Credit. Besides, the firm is also looking to invest in IoT for its ECO segment and Blockchain for the credit facilitation services.

The company is aiming to expand its operation in 100 more Indian cities and planning to launch International operations by 2018 starting with Thailand and Malaysia.

The latest round also brings good news for ESOPs holders as the company is looking for a buyback plan with Rs 50 crore in its kitty. According to Aggarwal, the company will buy shares from over 60 employees, and it will get materialised before Diwali.

Speaking to PTI, Aggarwal revealed that the company has an annualised gross merchandise value (GMV) run rate of $750 million and are doing $20 million annual revenue run rate.

The IPO-bound company further aims to double the GMV to $1.4 billion by end of 2018 and to $3.5 billion by 2019 and expects to hit profitability by the second half of 2019.

Droom which counts Lightbox, Beenext, Beenos, Toyota Tsusho, and Digital Garage as its major investors, has so far raised about $125 million risk capital.

Founded in 2014, Droom offers a wide range of categories from bicycle to planes and automobile services such as warranty, RSA, insurance, and auto loan.

The platform has over 250,000 auto dealers across 500 cities in India and 27.3 million monthly visitors.

The newly infused capital will be used by the Gurgaon-based company for investing heavily in developing Droom Credit, its marketplace for used vehicles loans. It also plans to bolster its pan India inspection services and drive further adoption for certification services.

The funding will also help the company to further expand its presence into C2C, C2B marketplace and strengthen its network in more than 100 cities.

Sandeep Agarwal, founder and CEO of Droom, said:

The latest round of fund will help us in our expansion goals and, accomplishment of our growth objectives and scaling up our technology to build efficiency. A substantial portion will also go towards building up Eco, the company’s automobile inspection services.

So far, the company has raised around $125 million in external funding since its inception. This new Series E funding comes just a few months after the company raised $30 million in Series D round in May this year, led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC) and Digital Garage.

The automobile marketplace, founded in 2014 by Sandeep Agarwal, who had previously co-founded online e-commerce platform ShopClues, has also revealed its plans to go for an IPO by 2020. It competes against the likes of Cartisan, Bumper, and Pitstop, among others.

The company, which has raised USD 125 million in funding till date, is also lining up an ESOP repurchase programme, entailing a spend of about Rs 50 crore.

"We have been on a fantastic growth trajectory, which is reflected in the confidence of our investors. We have an annualised gross merchandise value (GMV) run rate of USD 750 million and are doing USD 20 million annual revenue run rate," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told .

He added that the company has managed to keep its expenses under control and expects to hit profitability in the second half of 2019.

The company aims to double the GMV to USD 1.4 billion by end of 2018 and to USD 3.5 billion by 2019. The company plans to go for an IPO by 2020.

"Our employees have played a key role in this journey. The ESOP buyback will see us buying back shares from over 60 employees, and these people have been with the us for over three years or more," he said.

Aggarwal added that the repurchase initiative will entail an expense of about Rs 50 crore and will be completed by Diwali.

Talking about the fresh funding, he said the proceeds will be used to strengthen the platform and offerings like inspection and credit services.

"We aim to simultaneously strengthen and diversify our services such as inspection, Droom Credit, C2C and C2B marketplace formats, enable a smooth online transaction and provide more competitive terms and interest rates to customers through Droom Credit," he said.

Aggarwal added that the company is also looking to invest in advanced, emerging technologies such as IoT for its ECO segment and Blockchain for its credit facilitation services.

He, however, declined to comment on the valuation of the company.

In May, Droom had raised USD 30 million in series D, led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation (a Toyota Group firm), and Japan-based Digital Garage.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is an online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and related services.

Aggarwal said the company also expects to start its international operations by the end of the year.

"We are ready to launch in Thailand and Malaysia and we should be in these two countries by end of 2018. Different countries have different regulations and we will ensure that we comply with the local rules," he explained.

Droom has previously stated that it is investing USD 8-10 million towards international expansion and that the India business would continue to account for over 90 per cent of the company's revenues for the next two years.

The company also aims to expand its operations in 100 more Indian cities.

Droom is a Singapore Holding Company with subsidiaries in India and the US. Its other investors include Lightbox, Beenext, Beenos and Integrated Assets Management.

Engine, gearbox, brakes – check. Infotainment and interiors – check. Headlamps, tyres, and exteriors – check. Sounds like the final computerised checks on your brand-new car at the state-of-the-art shop floor before it is delivered? Well, that was an inspection-service technician doing due diligence on a pre-owned car about to find a new buyer.

The startup is growing rapidly and has recently received $30 million equity financing from Toyota Motor Corp., one of the world’s largest auto makers.

Droom has emerged as one of the country’s largest marketplaces, by building the technology and the product portfolio to address the trust deficit that exists in the used automobile market.

Startups usually don’t follow a structured HR process and nobody has time to track employee attrition. Most startups have to deal with ambiguity and chaos to keep up with the pace.

However, Droom’s founder, Sandeep Aggarwal, believes that a startup can grow and sustain only if it has a strong hiring policy and is able to attract the best talent. At the onset of its operations, the Droom had focused on the hiring process and devised ways and means to improvise its strategy.

“Dependency on the right people is of utmost importance for a startup. Sometimes, startups grow at a much faster rate than the growth of the industry because of which the right investment in human resource is critical,” adds Agarwal.

Since its inception Agarwal has personally interviewed 250 employees, independent of the candidate's salary, title, role, position and more. The Company has spelled out 12 core competencies and values, which include passion, energy, learning from mistakes, frugality, long-term approach, high work ethics and more. “We feel that people may come from different backgrounds, but there are some common threads that we need to figure out to unleash their true potential,” says Agarwal.

The selection process involves three–four rounds of interview, where the candidate gets the opportunity to evaluate the Company as well. While waiting for the next round, the candidate gets a tab which offers an understanding of the Company’s operations. As a consumer brand, the Company ensures that the whole process leaves a lasting impression on the applicant.

It has been able to retain most of its staff since inception, and out of the first 50 employees only three have left the firm. The startup, with presence in over 500 cities, has close to 300 employees.

The process to determine the value of pre-owned vehicles has always been difficult as it was completely dependent on individual evaluation parameters without having a statistical or scientific perspective. However, with the launch of the unique online tool, buyers and sellers are able to come to a conclusive consensus in terms of pricing. Droom’s OBV gets close to 15 million users on OBV every month to obtain a fair market value of a used vehicle in less than 10 seconds! The algorithmic pricing engine covers a wide spectrum of vehicle categories, including cars, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, and planes in its evaluation base, covering 24000+ products from 100+ makes, nearly 1000 models and 4000 variants produced in the last 15 to 16 years.

Commenting on the soaring popularity of OBV, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom, said, “It is overwhelming to see millions of Indians relying on a product as unique and useful as OBV before finalizing their vehicle sale and purchase. OBV has not only made buying and selling of pre-owned vehicles hassle-free and easy but also has brought down the search time and search cost for used vehicles. With the help of OBV, we have generated a series of checkpoints based on statistical evidence, pricing based algorithms and prior industrial trends to arrive at a price decision that has been comprehensively calculated. As India’s pre-owned automobile market shows an uptick, due to rapid urbanization, changing consumer needs and growing internet penetration, we look forward to serving more consumers, auto dealers and enterprises, and further strengthening our position in the realm of automobile buying and selling space.”

E-auto platform Droom founder & CEO Sandeep Aggarwal said, “Last year, new luxury cars grew at 11 per cent and used ones grew at 14 per cent, while the year before they grew at 9 per cent and 12 per cent respectively.”

Driving the growth is a demand shift from new premium and executive models — like the Skoda Superb or Volkswagen Passat — to used luxury vehicles, as the pre-used segment attracts completely new markets and customer segments compared to new luxury cars.

According to Aggarwal, the growth is driven by more “aspirational” customers who prefer a “three-year-old 3 Series over a new Skoda Superb”.

After acquiring such a huge user base, OBV has also become the third largest search engine in India.

Droom's OBV gets close to 15 million users on OBV every month to obtain a fair market value of a used vehicle in less than 10 seconds! The algorithmic pricing engine covers a wide spectrum of vehicle categories, including cars, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, and planes in its evaluation base, covering 24000+ products from 100+ makes, nearly 1000 models and 4000 variants produced in the last 15 to 16 years.

"With the help of OBV, we have generated a series of checkpoints based on statistical evidence, pricing based algorithms and prior industrial trends to arrive at a price decision that has been comprehensively calculated," said founder and CEO, Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

After acquiring such a huge user base, OBV has also become the third largest search engine in India.

Droom's OBV gets close to 15 million users on OBV every month to obtain a fair market value of a used vehicle in less than 10 seconds! The algorithmic pricing engine covers a wide spectrum of vehicle categories, including cars, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, and planes in its evaluation base, covering 24000+ products from 100+ makes, nearly 1000 models and 4000 variants produced in the last 15 to 16 years.

"With the help of OBV, we have generated a series of checkpoints based on statistical evidence, pricing based algorithms and prior industrial trends to arrive at a price decision that has been comprehensively calculated," said founder and CEO, Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

Data by CB Insights reveals these nine Indian unicorns are now part of the exclusive Global Unicorn Club, comprising 214 companies, and collectively worth $745 billion. But compared to China with 46 unicorns (including Xiaomi, Lu.com, Toutiao, etc) and the USA, which is home to over 50% of the global unicorns, India trails far behind.

"Earlier, there were no Indian unicorns. Now there is more than a handful, which is great. This reflects the potential and promise our entrepreneurs hold. We will see a lot more unicorns from India in the future,'' says Vivek Mansingh, general partner, YourNest, an early stage fund house.

Experts say the start-up equation in India cannot be compared with that of the USA, where this culture is at least four to five decades old.

According to Sucharita Eashwar, founder and CEO, Catalyst for Women Entrepreneurship, it is hardly 10 years since both the regulatory/governance and funding norms as well as the culture transformed to encourage and enable new-age firms. "Till then, educated Indians were applauded for getting jobs with established corporations. Banks were wary of providing credit, while equity investors were not interested in start-ups."

TCS at the rate of up to one per cent is yet to be implemented as it has been deferred till September this year. A spokesman of online marketplace ShopClues says, "Not only for the benefit of e-commerce companies but also for MSMEs and sellers ...

Exhibit: What was the key idea that inspired you to start Droom?

India is the third largest automobile market in the world. From the time Henry Ford invented assembly line, the cars have become very advanced but that is not the case when it comes to buying and selling a vehicle. Unlike the US, India is a low trust market. We thought wouldn’t it be nice to come out with a marketplace and hence we started working on Droom.

Once you start planning to sell your old car, the first consideration that comes to your mind is whether you would get the right price.

You may choose to sell it though those used car shops, but will have to part with a cut. And if you plan to sell it privately through dealer websites, that process too is quite cumbersome and exhausting — listing the car on the website, taking calls from interested buyers, offering a few test drives, striking a deal and finally the transaction.

Selling an old car calls for making strategic moves at every step to get the maximum value. Here are a few tips that you can consider before you part with your beloved car:

1. Do proper market research

It is crucial for you to know the exact condition of the car you are going to sell off — mileage, overall condition, specific features or any development/changes or issues etc. You must also check out cars from the specific year, make and model put up for sale on various dealer websites. Online classified ad websites such as Truebil, Droom, Cars24, Quikr etc list all the old cars up for sale, a perusal of which can help you determine the average price range for a car similar to yours. Sellers can also figure out the number of vehicles currently available for sale in their area. Older or unique vehicles might take longer to find buyers.

2. Get an assessment of your used car done

Before selling your old car, you must find out whether it is actually ready for sale. Try to sell a used vehicle with old tires, major scratches or dents, broken headlights or taillights to private individuals might be counterproductive. Buyers generally avoid a car with such and other flaws. A smart piece of advice will be to find someone who can give a balanced opinion about the condition and saleability of your car.

Once you have detected the issues, spend some time and money fixing them to prepare your car for sale. Even though changing the clutch plate, fixing power windows and repairing the dents may be an expensive proposition, but they can help you ensure a good price for your used car.

3. Evaluate the price range

According to available data, Indians are opening up to buying and selling used cars big time. For every two new cars sold, there are three used cars getting sold. To close the deal quickly, it is hence crucial to do some swift homework and find the best value for your car.

You can find help online in this regard. At Truebil, you can get a detailed inspection report prepared on the basis of the car’s condition, age, mileage, number of kilometers driven etc. Using its TruePrice metrics, a proprietary car pricing tool, the seller is then given a quote. Another platform, Doom, offers an OBV Pricing Certificate that suggests the fair value of any used car by analysing all the user-given inputs.

4. Keep all your documents in order

While you get the price determined, don’t forget the documentation part. For a clean transaction, all documents of your used car are necessary, to prove that the inputs given by you are authentic. The mandatory documents include insurance papers, the registration certificate of your, Pollution Under Control certificate, and a no-objection certificate from your in case you had taken a loan to buy the car.

Another important to keep in mind is a fully insured car with zero depreciation has a higher resale value than the one with a basic insurance. It improves your chances of getting shortlisted.

5. Create a striking ad and publish it

Now that you are ready for the deal, having completed all the refurbishing, assessment, price evaluation and documentation, it’s time to market your prized possession that you are going to part with. You need to put up an ad on websites for which you have to make sure it stands out amid the sea of sellers out to lure your potential buyer.

Click proper and clear images of the car, inside out, to be posted along with a striking headline. The photos should be accompanied with a compelling description of your vehicle, complete with useful specifics and a detailed summary.

Being absolutely new to the car-selling process can be an unusual experience. This calls for a certain amount of effort to be put in by the seller and making a strategic move at every step to get the maximum value of a car from the buyer. So here are a few things that need to be considered before you let go of your beloved car with the best possible value:

Market Research

Before selling a car, it is crucial to have a thorough knowledge about the condition of the vehicle in terms of its mileage, overall condition, specific features or any development/changes or issues. After that, one must find cars from the specific year, make and model available on various dealer websites and popular online classified ad websites like Truebil, Droom, Cars24, Quikr to determine the average price range for a car in this condition. By investigating on various platforms, sellers can figure out the number of vehicles that are presently available for sale in their area. For an older or unique vehicle, sellers must be aware that it will take longer to sell because potential buyers would be few.

Car Assessment

Find out whether your car is actually ready for sale as many of you try to sell your vehicles with old tires, major scratches or dents, broken headlights or taillights, and other flaws. Buyers usually avoid a car with that kind of problems. The smart thing to do in such cases is to find a person who can give a balanced opinion about your car instead of a biased one. Once the defects and problems are detected, spend some money and time reconditioning your car for sale. Problems like changing the clutch plate, getting the power windows fixed and the dents repaired might turn out to be a bit expensive, but they can also go a long way in terms of getting a good price for your car.

Evaluating the price range of your car

Indians are rapidly opening up to the idea of buying and selling used cars as for every 2 new cars sold, 3 used cars are sold at the same time which indicates the intense competition and high level of customer attrition. Thus, to close the deal quickly, it is crucial to do swift homework and find the best value of the car. Online platforms like Truebil create a detailed inspection report prepared on the basis of the car’s condition, age, mileage, number of kilometers driven etc, after which the seller is given a quote using TruePrice metrics. TruePrice is a proprietary car pricing tool which uses advanced technology to give a data-driven intelligent assessment of the car's current value, based on complex pricing models which account for a vast number of variables. Meanwhile, platforms like Droom have come up with an OBV Pricing Certificate that suggests the fair value of any used car by analyzing all the inputs given by the user. It comes up with the current market price of the vehicle depending upon its overall condition that helps the buyers and sellers come on the same page in terms of pricing.

Collect all the documents

Once the price has been determined, it’s time to focus on the documentation. Yes! You read that right. Documents of your car are necessary for a clean transaction and they are a proof that the data given by you is authentic. The mandatory paperwork includes Insurance papers, Registration certificate, PUC and Bank NOC (only if there is any loan taken for the same). Remember, a fully insured car with zero depreciation has a higher resale value than the one with a basic insurance as it improves your chances of getting shortlisted. So collect all the mentioned paperwork before you decide to sell your car.

Create and Publish Your Ad

They say the first impression is the last impression. And, now that you are well-equipped with all the refurbishing, documentation, and price evaluation, click proper and clear images of the car inside-out and pair them with a compelling description of your vehicle. After all, there might be hundreds of sellers luring your potential buyer in other ads. Make sure you have a striking headline, photographs, and a detailed summary with useful details.

Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Droom, talks more about the pre-owned automobile market in India, revenue model and the marketing strategy they adhere to. Excerpts:

You have almost doubled your marketing budget. This shows 2017-18 was good in terms of revenue. What all did you achieve in the last year?

We have doubled our budget, because we have quadrupled in terms of GMV and net revenue. We have seen a 30% increase in our workforce, close to 217% increase in our GMV, and around 370% increase in our net revenue in comparison to last year. That’s the reason our marketing budget has doubled, in fact, our overall top line growth has been much faster than the increase in the marketing budget. We are ready to take our brand to the masses. Droom has allocated Rs 150 crore to digital marketing alone. What new will we be seeing from your end?

A total of four television campaigns are in the pipeline over the next 12 months. The first campaign will focus on the auto portal’s Orange Book Value offering — a pricing tool — and is scheduled to run for two months across 37 television channels, pan India. The next campaign will be launched in August to position Droom as a partner in the entire lifecycle management of the vehicle. This will be followed by another burst around Diwali on auto financing for Droom Credit. Also, this year, the focus is more on Hindi channels with the portal seeing increased traffic from tier II cities and beyond. The share of Hindi channels will be 65%, while the share of non HD channels will be 80%. Droom will also have an integrated approach towards TV and online for the first time, with parallel video ads running on digital along with TV for brand creation.

Rs 150 crore is segregated between ATL and BTL activities. How does BTL work as a medium for the company?

Our marketing budget goes into ATL, BTL, Digital and PR activities. BTL advertising is an integral part of our marketing initiatives. This provides a more personal touch where we can engage and communicate with the audience. As a brand, we get valuable feedback while creating a long lasting impact on the consumers' mind. We have experimented with various formats; from creating experiences like chopper, plane, supercar and superbike rides in partnership with Uber, to activations in auto markets, where we provide instant valuation of any vehicle.

The used car market is quite scattered in India and several other companies tried bringing it online, but no one has really succeeded. Comment.

There may be a lot of online automobile player due to its large market share, which is 12% of the Indian GDP and almost all large automobile industries across the globe have 6-8 or more meaningful multi-billionaire online automobile players. Even when we started we had very little capital and online classifieds such as Olx and Quickr, and online store platforms such as Car Dekho, CarWale, Gaadi.com, were all very big, but this fact did not discourage us because we focused on our original thinking, innovation, customization, and our competition. We currently hold 70% market share of all the automobile transactions taking place online, so we have already beaten competition. We get 33 million traffic, which is probably larger than any other automobile-focused portal. So, we feel that we can dominate this category for the next four decades.

How do you plan to disrupt the pre-owned automobile market? Offers and promotions don't last forever, what other strategies do you have?

We intend to strengthen our ongoing efforts by reaching out to more consumers with this amplified monetary allocation.

We will be running several campaigns soon, as I said, that focus mainly on the innovative mechanisms adopted by Droom. We aim to offer our customers listed certificate packages that include certificates for pricing history and inspection. In August, we want to focus on auto financing too. Droom has tied up with numerous insurance companies to provide customers with policies. Furthermore, Droom has one of the largest RTO networks, ensuring that customers are able to complete their RTO transfers seamlessly.

From researching about the vehicle to buying, maintaining and disposing it, Droom aims to emerge as the one-stop solution for all these needs.

What is your long-term revenue strategy? What percentage of commission are you playing at currently?

Currently, we are making 2.5% of our GMV net revenue. This number used to be 1.7% just a year back, so we have seen 80 basis points improvement in our net revenue and we think in the next one year we will be running at close to 3.5% and above that we are expecting full profitability. Unlike any other e-commerce company, we have five different distinct revenue sources, and each one is growing rapidly. Out of these five-revenue sources is transactional revenue sources, where someone sells automobiles or automobile services and we make a commission anywhere between 2%-15%. Second is, we provide subscription service to large dealers, third is advertising, fourth is premium tools such as a premium report from Orange Book Value, ECO and HISTORY and fifth is Loan and Insurance. These Five distinct revenue sources are ramping up very nicely and we think in a year’s time, we will be profitable.

The partnership will enable a large number of uberMOTO drivers to procure a quality two-wheeler easily, with ability to get loan, insurance, certification and RTO registration services besides incredible discounts and deals on offer.

However, Droom will simplify the on-boarding process for Uber as well as the riders. Instead of reaching out to multiple dealers to source the bikes, uberMOTO will now be able to easily coordinate with Droom fleet solutions and fulfill the requirements of the drivers at bulk.

"This partnership guarantees a win-win situation for both the stakeholders involved. While Uber drivers are guaranteed better access to not only high quality and wide variety of new and pre-owned bikes at fabulous prices, but also to penetrate the driver community strongly," said founder and Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

"Our partnership with Droom will enable more driver's partners to explore and pursue micro-entrepreneurship opportunities through bike-sharing by using the uberMOTO app. This is also an important step towards fulfilling our commitment to ensure last mile connectivity in an easy and affordable way," said Regional General Manager, Uber India and South Asia, Prabhjeet Singh.

Through this partnership Droom will be offering its services in all the 12 cities in India where uberMOTO is operational in real time which includes Gurgaon, Noida, Ghaziabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kanpur, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Ahmedabad, Faridabad, Hyderabad and Amritsar.

This brand-new and exciting partnership of Droom with uberMOTO will help to further strengthen its foothold in the pre-owned online automobile market and reach out to a wider audience in the coming time.

New Delhi: Online automobile transactional marketplace, Droom has entered into a strategic partnership with uberMOTO, the company said in a press release. Under the association, all the new uberMOTO drivers will be offered assistance to source a new or used bike from Droom.

The move is facilitated by Droom fleet solutions, a division of Droom, to penetrate deeper into the drivers’ community and reinforce its leadership position in the online automobile marketplace segment.

At present, Droom has already initiated its assistance and services for the drivers in Gurugram and aims to expand its footprint across India.

The partnership will enable a large number of uberMOTO drivers to procure a quality two-wheeler easily, with ability to get loan, insurance, certification and RTO registration services besides incredible discounts and deals on offer. Droom will simplify the onboarding process for Uber as well as the riders.

Instead of reaching out to multiple dealers to source the bikes, uberMOTO will now be able to easily coordinate with Droom fleet solutions and fulfil the requirements of the drivers at bulk.

Commenting on the strategic alliance, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and Droom, said, “This partnership guarantees a win-win situation for both the stakeholders involved. While Uber drivers are guaranteed better access to not only high quality and wide variety of new and pre-owned bikes at fabulous prices, but also to penetrate the driver community strongly.”

Commenting on the partnership, Prabhjeet Singh, Regional General Manager, Uber India and South Asia said, “As 2 wheelers are ubiquitous in India, the nation has the opportunity to unlock the potential of shared mobility through optimal utilisation of existing vehicles on the road. Our partnership with Droom will enable more driver’s partners to explore and pursue micro-entrepreneurship opportunities through bike-sharing by using the uberMOTO app. ”

Through this partnership Droom will be offering its services in all the 12 cities in India where uberMOTO is operational in real time which includes Gurgaon, Noida, Ghaziabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kanpur, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Ahmedabad, Faridabad, Hyderabad and Amritsar. This brand-new and exciting partnership of Droom with uberMOTO will help to further strengthen its foothold in the pre-owned online automobile market and reach out to a wider audience in the coming time.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime celebrated its first anniversary on 1 July. The biggest tax reform since independence, the GST was rolled out at midnight on 30 June by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the then President Pranab Mukherjee, in the central hall of Parliament. GST has subsumed over a dozen local taxes in its stated aim of 'One Nation One Tax'.

Over 1.11 crore businesses are registered under the GST. Firstpost spoke to companies to find out what they view as the positives and the pain-points of the indirect tax regime. Almost everyone we spoke to said the GST has helped organise the unorganised sector to a large extent, and, in many cases, has revolutionised entire industries. However, our interviewees did dwell on certain aspects, in the GST regime, that can be improved. Industry speak follows:

Simplicity, clarity and comfort: The main aim of the GST was a simplified tax system. Being deliberated for over 15 years, it became a reality under the Narendra Modi government. The Centre was clear that if there were contentious issues, the GST Council would meet every month to sort them out. Farshid Cooper, Managing Director, Spenta Corporation, said that in the case of real estate, there 'seems' to be significantly more clarity and comfort from a buyers' perspective. The revision of rates from 28 percent to 18 percent for several construction materials helped vendors manage their cash flows more efficiently.

"People are more aware about their rights such as asking for a GST reduction benefit," said Adhil Shetty, co-founder & CEO, BankBazaar.

Boosts formal employment: The GST has given a boost to formal employment. Suchita Dutta, Executive Director, Indian Staffing Federation said that post-GST implementation, there is an incentive for customers to choose the services of tax-compliant staffing companies, which allows them to claim input tax credits (ITCs) that aren't available as a benefit. Leg-up to manufacturing: GST has been able to reduce administrative costs for both manufacturers and distributors. Abhishek Agarwal, co-founder, Globepanda, said that it provides credit to producers and manufacturers that encourages them to buy from registered dealers, who in-turn bring more vendors and suppliers into the tax bracket.

On the first anniversary of GST, Union Minister Arun Jaitley said that as the tax collection from GST goes up, the tax structure would be rationalised further. He also said that the government is aiming to bring most items in the 28 percent tax slab to the lower slabs.

Addition of compliance work: The most persistent problem around GST has been the addition of compliance work. Prior to GST, businesses were expected to file their service tax and VAT statements on a quarterly or semi-annual basis. Now, sellers are expected to file a number of reports on a monthly basis online, which consumes a lot of time and makes running business operations more difficult, said Saahil Goel, CEO and Founder, Kraftly.

Changes in tax rates an issue: Since GST rates were changed frequently in the initial months, filings by businesses were lower than expected, said entrepreneurs. "The frequent changes in tax rates of some goods and services and the introduction of new rules every now and then added to the confusion," said Anupam Singhi, CEO, William O'Neil India.

There are some categories that are negatively impacted by GST implementation. "For instance, a 28 percent tax is applicable on financial leasing of a used vehicle, and I hope the government will reduce that rate over time," said Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO of used-car marketplace Droom.

High rate of taxes: A very high GST of 18 percent is imposed on the services sector and it could discourage consumption in general, believe some. "Considering that a majority of our GDP contribution comes from the services sector, the tax rate should be lower," said Tejas Khoday, a member of the BSE Brokers' Forum.

Include all realty: A demand for lower GST on real estate under construction or inclusion of all real estate properties in GST is important for properties where land costs are significant and impact overall pricing of property, said Ankur Dhawan, Chief Investment Officer, PropTiger.com. When service tax was levied, there was a 70 percent abatement for land cost; whereas in GST, land abatement is only one-third of land value. This is a huge burden on apartment-buyers, said Ashok Mohanani, Chairman, Ekta World. Owing to the GST regime, the gross tax outflow on investing in a property has seen a steep rise of up to eight percent, said Manju Yagnik, Vice Chairperson, Nahar Group.

Incentives to traders: Traders have requested the finance ministry to review issues like filing of multi-returns; refunds from the department; awareness about the unified tax regime and its compliance.

"A comprehensive incentive scheme should be given to traders -- who use digital payment gateways to comply with tax obligations and also use those gateways in their day-to-day business -- in the form of a rebate in tax," said the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT).

Merge or abolish stamp duty: Stamp duty continues to remain in force even after the implementation of GST and their rates vary across states, said Surendra Hiranandani, CMD, House of Hiranandani.

Central authority for advance rulings: The establishment of a central authority for advance rulings to regularly oversee and approve rulings made by state authorities needs to be strongly considered, said Archit Gupta, Founder and CEO, ClearTax.

Include additional taxes, levies in GST: If GST has to give an impetus to the real estate sector, additional taxes and levies should also be included within the 12 percent charged. That helps bring down the cumulative amount payable by a home buyer, said Rajeev Jain, Director, Nirmal Lifestyle.

Goods and services tax (GST), which is turning one on Sunday, is likely to usher in significant reforms by 2019, experts and consultants believe. The changes could be in terms of tax rates, expansion of ambit, system of advance rulings, clarity on cess and procedural issues.

But, some tweaking is possible much sooner. For instance, minor rate cuts in the range of 1-2 percentage points may be announced to incentivise digitalisation, anti-profiteering authority is likely to start imposing fine on companies and the refunds process is expected to be more streamlined.

At $4.9 billion, Japan’s investments in 2017 increased about 13 times from a mere $387 million the previous year.

Investments from the US and China were at $4.6 billion and $3.5 billion, respectively, last year compared to $3.2 billion and $662 million in 2016, respectively. However, American investors pumped in money in more number of rounds compared to their Japanese and Chinese counterparts.

Tracxn data also showed that against five venture capital firms for China and the US, about a dozen Japanese investors showed interest in the emerging outfits of the world’s fastest growing economy.

New avenues

Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank led the Japanese pack with investments in start-ups such as Flipkart, Paytm, Grofers, Ola, Oyo, Policybazaar and PropTiger. Other Japanese investors included Beenos, Digital Garage, Gree Ventures, Dream Incubator, Rebright Ventures, and Asuka Corporation. Industry experts say that with the Japanese economy growing at a mere one per cent and bank deposits yielding negative returns, it’s important for investors to find investment avenues outside the country.

“India is a large economy growing at over 7 per cent and offers a lot of possibilities for Japanese investors. Culturally and geo-politically, Japan has strong ties with India. We can expect more Japanese funds deploy risk capital in Indian start-ups,” said Pallav Pandey, a serial investor/entrepreneur and founder of Fastfox.com.

He said typical cheque sizes would be smaller (sub-$1 million) and can come as co-investment with someone who can lead the round.

Different strategy

“There are plenty of early-stage investment opportunities in China. So we are not seeing early- stage risk capital being deployed in India. Instead, it is larger, bigger, surer bets being taken in India by Chinese investors on opportunities that have played out in China,” Pandey said.

Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder, and CEO, droom.in, which has eight Japanese investors, said: “Japanese investors are detail-oriented; for them chemistry with the founder is very important.. I have equal exposure with Chinese investors and they are also equally amazing, but have a different style.”

Several start-up evangelists are hopeful that Japan will continue to surpass China in 2019 too. There are reports of a large fund being set up by Mistletoe, founded by Masayoshi Son’s brother, Tazo Son.

Also the 80-year-old car-maker Toyota, through its investment arm, has already invested $30 million in the automobile marketplace Droom along with other existing investors. Another mid-size fund, Incubate, is also looking to enter the Indian market.

Of the total marketing budget, Droom has allocated Rs 150 crore for digital media marketing and Rs 150 crore for various marketing activities along with Rs 50 crore towards CSR-related campaigns.

Another Rs 50 crore is earmarked for deals and promotions for customer engagement and experience initiatives, the statement said.

In May, Droom had announced raising $30 million in series D funding from Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC) and Tokyo-based incubator Digital Garage. Its other ..

"We have increased our marketing spend this year to further give a boost to our current online business. We are also looking to enhance our presence in tier II and III cities to attract more online automobile shoppers," he added.

Aggarwal said the company aims to double its annualised sales and gross merchandise value (GMV) from about Rs 4,000 crore to Rs 8,000 crore by December 2018 and Rs 18,000 crore by 2019.

GMV is a term used in online retailing to indicate the gross merchandise value of the products sold through the marketplace over a certain period of time.

"By increasing our marketing budget, we believe the company can achieve its net revenue target of Rs 275 crore for 2018, expand its reach and ..

When one talks of pre-owned automobile marketplaces online, questions of quality and credibility are always a concern. Despite this, several portals are seeing traction in the space such as Droom, CarDekho or CarTrade. And to fuel its growth as well as propel its marketing agenda, Droom has earmarked Rs 400 crore for marketing for the next 12 months — a 77% increase over the previous year’s marketing spend of Rs 225 crore. Out of this budget, Droom plans to spend Rs 150 crore on digital marketing, of which two-thirds will be performance-based and Rs 50 crore will be spent on branding, such as on YouTube and Facebook videos. The share of television will be Rs 100 crore, with another Rs 50 crore allocated for print, outdoor and activation.

In addition, Rs 50 crore each has been assigned for promotions and CSR. A total of four television campaigns are in the pipeline for the next 12 months. Its first campaign, starting this week, focusses on the auto portal’s orange book value offering — a pricing tool — and is scheduled to run for two months across 37 television channels, pan India. “We will be running three more campaigns. The idea is to make Droom a ‘household name’,” says Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom. “The next campaign will be launched in August to position Droom as a partner in the entire lifecycle management of the vehicle. This will be followed by another burst around Diwali on auto financing for Droom Credit,” he informs.

This year, the focus is more on Hindi channels with the portal seeing increased traffic from tier II cities and beyond. The share of Hindi channels will be 65%, while the share of non HD channels will be 80%. Droom will also have an integrated approach towards TV and online for the first time, with parallel video ads running on digital along with TV for brand creation. “Earlier there was a bias towards English channels, with a focus on the top 15 cities. But now, we have increased the exposure to Hindi channels with an eye on the top 40 cities,” observes Aggarwal. It is currently present in 510 cities. Droom sees 32 million monthly visitors on its website and app, and sells close to 75,000 cars and one lakh two wheelers per annum. “By increasing our marketing budget, we believe Droom can achieve its net revenue target of `275 crore for 2018 by expanding its reach,” Aggarwal sums up.

Droom.in will be operational in Indonesia and Thailand or Malaysia by the fourth quarter. Sandeep Aggarwal, founder & CEO, said by mid 2019 they will be operational in five countries. Major challenge, Aggarwal, said is in offering localised services like choice of language and right Human Resources.

Fund raising

The online marketplace has raised around $30 million (Rs 200 crore) in Series D from Toyota Tsusho Corporation.

Besides, investors such as Ellison Investments, an Asia-based investment manager, as well as many existing investors and a number of prominent institutional investors and family offices from China, Hong Kong and SE Asia participated in this round. With this round, the Droom's total funding, since its inception in 2014, stands at $93 million (Rs 623 crore approximately).

The newly raised funds will be used to further strengthen Droom’s domination in the online automobile marketplace segment in India, where it currently owns nearly 70% market share, as well as to make its ecosystem service tools more scalable and to expand its international presence, the company said in a statement. Part of the funds would be used to invest in further developing its Machine learning and AI capabilities.

Droom, an online automobile store, on Thursday announced a $30 million Series-D investment jointly led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation, a unit of Japan’s automobile major Toyota Group, and existing investor Digital Garage.

Tokyo-headquartered Toyota Tsusho Corporation is engaged in trading automobile raw materials, along with their manufacturing, logistics and sales.

The firm’s investment also includes a memorandum of understanding with Droom, to facilitate the platform’s expansion in various South East Asia markets, Droom said.

Ellison Investments, an Asia-based investment manager, and several existing backers of Droom participated in the latest fund-raise. Droom raised Series-C investment of Rs2 crore from Hong Kong-based Integrated Asset Management Asia Ltd last year in July.

Droom is also backed by Lightbox, Beenext, Beenos and several independent investors from China and Hong Kong, and has so far raised over $20 million.

“We and Droom are sharing the same vision, which is bringing trust and transparency to the transactions of automobiles. We believe that this partnership contributes the establishment of highly transparent transaction of automotive the wholesome development of auto market of any developing countries, by combining Droom’s technologically advanced platform and our various automotive business experience of all over the world,” said a statement by Toyota Tsusho Corporation quoted in Droom’s press release.

Droom was launched in 2014 by Sandeep Aggarwal, a co-founder of e-commerce firm ShopClues. The firm is registered in Singapore as Droom Pte Ltd.

Droom’s platform serves as an online marketplace to buy and sell cars and two-wheelers. Over the past few years, it has branched into allied services like fair value calculator, roadside assistance and auto loans in a bid to increase revenue.

The company said it will use the proceeds from latest round towards initiatives to grow its market share in India, technology expansion and launch in international markets.

“The newly raised funds will be used to further strengthen Droom’s domination in the online automobiles marketplace segment in India, where it currently owns nearly 70% market share, as well as to make its ecosystem service tools more scalable and to expand its international presence,” the company said.

Toyota Tsusho Corporation is a part of Japanese auto maker Toyota Group.

The series D round also saw participation from Ellison Investments, an Asia-based investment manager, as well as many existing investors and institutional investors and family offices from China, Hong Kong and South East Asia, Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told reporters here.

He added that with this round, the company has raised about USD 95 million (around Rs 6,437 crore) till date.

"The funds will be used to further strengthen our operations in India as well as expand to South East Asian markets like Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam among others," he added.

Besides the funding, Droom also inked an agreement with Toyota Tsusho Corporation that will help it expand internationally.

The company will invest USD 8-10 million towards international expansion, he said, adding that its India business would continue to account for over 90 per cent of its revenues for the next two years.

"The Indian market continues to hold great potential. As per estimates, the auto market (including vehicle sales and after-sales services like servicing and insurance) is expected to be about USD 350 billion in size by 2022 with 6-8 per cent being online," he said.

Asked if the company was looking at an IPO, Aggarwal said it is on the company's radar.

"We will look at listing when we get to a net revenue of about USD 100-110 million. While we have a net revenue of about USD 16.5 million, we are expecting strong growth and with international expansion on the cards, we see us going for the IPO by end of 2019," he said.

He said the company is generating close to USD 700 million in gross revenue with the listed gross merchandise value (GMV) of USD 3.5 billion on its platform.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is an online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and related services.

In July last year, Droom had raised USD 20 million (around Rs 130 crore) in Series C funding led by Integrated Asset Management and Digital Garage. That round had seen participation from Lightbox, Beenos and Beenext.

Prior to that, it had raised a seed funding of USD 1.5 million and USD 4 million in May and October 2014, respectively, followed by Series A round of Rs 100 crore in June 2015.

In a press statement, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of Droom, said that Droom has changed how automobiles are bought and sold online by creating robust tech and AI-based services and tools fit for the 21st century. He added,

As part of the deal, Toyota Tsusho Corporation signed an MOU with Droom for international expansion. The newly raised funds will be used to further strengthen Droom’s strength in the online automobiles marketplace segment in India, where it claims to be owning nearly a 70-percent market share. The fresh funding will be used to make its service tools more scalable and to expand its international presence. The tech-led platform will also invest heavily in further developing its machine learning and AI capabilities.

Through the latest funding and the ongoing support of investors, Droom aims to cement its position as India’s foremost online automobile marketplace. In the past three years, Droom has reportedly generated close to $700 million in gross revenue and $15 million in net revenue with a GMV of $3.5 billion. The company claims to be catering to over 250,000 auto dealers in more than 500 cities across India and 27.3 million monthly visitors online, with 7.4 million app downloads and 5.5 million via Facebook reach.

The company aims to double its gross merchandise value to $1.4 billion by end of 2018 and $3.5 billion by 2019, and also plans to go for an IPO by end of 2019.

A spokesperson from Toyota Tsusho Corporation said,

Droom is a Singapore-holding company with its subsidiary in India and the US. It has raised close to $95 million so far in six rounds of funding. Some of the prominent investors include Lightbox, Beenext, Beenos, Digital Garage, Toyota Tsusho Corporation and Integrated Assets Management. Droom is headquartered in Gurugram, India with a team size of more than 300.

The platform, which has 250,000 retailers across 500 cities in the country and a subsidiary in the US, also said it plans to launch an initial public offering (IPO) next year.

Ellison Investments, existing investors as well as several institutional investors and family offices from China, Hong Kong and South East Asia had also participated in the round, said Gurugram-based Droom Technology Pvt. Ltd, owner of the online platform. Since its launch in April 2014, Droom has raised more than $90 million in external funding.

Droom, which claims to have 27.3 million monthly visitors, said the fresh funds will be used to boost its market share, which it claims stands at 70%. Moreover, the platform aims to double its gross merchandise value to $1.4 billion by the end of 2018 and to $3.5 billion by 2019-end.

In the online used-automobiles space, Droom competes with Truebil, Zoomo, CarDekho (which had acquired Gaadi.com), Carwale and CarTrade. People-to-people platforms, such as OLX and Quikr, too, share the same space.

With the funding, Droom said it would develop artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities of its marketplace platform.

“We were heavily invested in data science but now we have decided to take it to the next step by incorporating AI into the platform. We are looking at AI from multiple use cases so that we can reform the customer (buyer and seller) experience on the platform,” Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Droom, told TechCircle.

Further explaining the use of AI and ML, he said that the company was planning to use them for key aspects such as vehicle markups, selling intelligence, creating better credit risk engines and operational expertise in running promotional campaigns. Markup is an increase in the price of something based on the difference between the cost of producing it and the price it is sold at.

“We offer discounts from time to time but with AI infusion, the machine can automate the entire process by deciding whom to give the discount and how much percentage or under what conditions it should be offered,” Aggarwal said, adding that the company was planning to gain more business intelligence on credit risk profiles using the new technology.

“AI would ideally let the machine also control inventory decisions, depending on historical data of the car make and model. All of this will help streamline operations, bring down the cost of customer acquisition and provide better experiences,” he explained.

Aggarwal also said that to infuse AI the company will need to hire more employees. “Out of our 300-plus employees, more than half are engineers or product-oriented people. Having said that, we have decided to increase our headcount by another 110 members, of which at least 60% will be engineers,” he said, adding that his company was using Amazon Web Services and Netmagic for cloud computing solutions.

Droom has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Toyota Tsusho Corporation to expand internationally in South East Asia. Aggarwal said that the firm was looking to foray into nine countries: Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and the Philippines.

The company, according to the founder, has already hired a new international expansion team from India, which is expected to go to these markets and set up a new subsidiary there. “The team also has interns who will help with the international expansion, after which the firm will hire some local talent to support operations for the platform. But we will remain headquartered in Gurugram, where we will continue to build our brand and platform,” Aggarwal said.

Droom’s funding

Droom had received $20 million last July in a Series C round led by Integrated Asset Management (Asia) Ltd and Digital Garage.

In July 2016, it had raised an undisclosed amount in a Series B round from venture capital fund Beenext, Digital Garage, Lightbox, Beenos, and others.

Sandeep Aggarwal-led Automobile marketplace Droom has raised $30 Mn in Series D round of funding led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC), a Toyota Group Corporation company and Japan-based Digital Garage. Four more new investors from family offices of Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, also participated in this funding round.

The startup plans to use the funding to further strengthen its position, make its ecosystem tools more scalable and advance its international expansion plans. Droom will also invest heavily in further developing its Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence capabilities.

Commenting on the investment, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of Droom said, “This partnership will play a major role as we realise our growth potential, both in India and internationally.”

With this deal, Droom has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with TTC to expand internationally beginning with the southeast Asian market, leveraging Toyota’s inventory for expansion.

On the development, Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC) said, “We and Droom are sharing the same vision, which is bringing trust and transparency to the transactions of automobiles. We believe that this partnership contributes the establishment of the highly transparent transaction of automotive the wholesome development of the auto market of any developing countries, by combing Droom’s technology advanced platform and our various automotive business experience of all over the world.”

The total funding for Droom now nears $95 Mn since its inception. It is now also planning to go for an IPO by 2019.

Earlier, the company raised $20 Mn in July 2017 and prior to that, undisclosed (reported to be around $30 Mn) Series B funding in June 2016.

Droom: Reorganising Automobile Marketplace

Founded in April 2014 by Sandeep Aggarwal and Rishab Malik, Droom enables customers to buy and sell new and old automobiles and follows all four business models i.e. B2B, B2C, C2C, C2B.

It offers a wide range of categories from bicycle to planes. Additionally, it provides other automobile services such as warranty, RSA, insurance and auto loan. Droom uses advanced technologies like de-facto pricing standard, full circle trust score, among others.

Headquartered in Gurugram, the company claims to have a market share of 65% in the automobile marketplace category. Recently, the company also expanded its portfolio in electric vehicles.

Earlier, Sandeep had revealed that the company is planning for expansion in Southeast Asia and is also looking to get registered on NASDAQ by 2019.

The company claims to record nearly $700 Mn in gross revenue and $15 Mn in net revenue with the listed GMV of $3.5 Bn. It has recorded nearly 250k auto dealers in more than 500 cities across India on its platform with 27.3 Mn monthly visitors.

The company aims to double its gross merchandise value to $1.4 Bn by end of 2018 and $3.5 Bn by 2019.

It helps automobile dealers to increase their consumer base and provides them with vehicle checks using its advanced data science algorithms. It charges an annual subscription to dealers and is also looking to earn revenue by introducing automobile credit, which will be provided to the consumers.

The startup is also planning to monetise its Orange Book Value feature, which gives the fair price of bikes and cars in the country. Other features like auto inspection will also be rolled out for dealers.

The other services include History, with about 200 Mn vehicle history records, Discovery (dozens of pre-buying tools), and Credit (a marketplace for used vehicles loans).

Before the listing on the stock exchange for IPO by mid-2019, the company had targeted a GMV of about $2.5 Bn and a net revenue of about $55 Mn (INR 350 Cr).

In the automobile segment, Droom competes with the likes of Cartisan, Bumper, Pitstop, among others.

According to an IBEF report, the Indian auto industry, one of the largest in the world, accounts for 7.1% of the country’s GDP.

The report has pegged Indian automobile market at $125 Bn. Out of which, $100 Bn is the estimated share of automobile sales and remaining $25 Bn includes services. It is expected to grow at a rate of about 10% to a whopping $225 Bn by 2020.

Also, India is a prominent auto exporter and has strong export growth expectations for the near future. Further, several initiatives by the Government of India including ‘Make in India’ and the major automobile players in the Indian market are expected to make India a leader in the two Wheeler and Four Wheeler market in the world by 2020.

With huge growth potential in the growing vehicular segment, the latest push of funding for Droom is bound to escalate company’s portfolio of products and services.

Droom, Gurugram-based transactional platform for automobile, has recently raised $30 million in Series D, led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation (member Toyota Group) and co-led by Digital Garage of Japan. They are joined by Ellison Investments, an Asia-based investment manager, as well as many existing investors and a number of prominent institutional investors and family offices from China, Hong Kong and SE Asia.

The newly raised funds will be used to further strengthen Droom’s domination in the online automobiles marketplace segment in India, where it currently owns nearly 70% market share, as well as to make its ecosystem service tools more scalable and to expand its international presence. The tech-led platform will also invest heavily in further developing its Machine learning and AI capabilities and build 100x larger scale.

Droom also signed an MOU with Toyota Tsusho Corporation to expand internationally in SE Asia, reinforcing its global attractiveness in the markets that are characterized by trust deficit, high cost of capita, highly fragmented seller base, and loose rules & regulations.

In the past three years, it has acquired 70% of the online automobile market share in India, generating close to $700 million in gross revenue and $15 million in net revenue with the listed GMV of $3.5 bn. Droom has also proved its position as largest online automobile marketplace in India with close to 250k auto dealers in more than 500 cities across India on its platform and 27.3 million monthly visitors. The company aims to double its gross merchandise value to $1.4 bn by end of 2018 and $3.5 bn by 2019. The company plans to go for an IPO by end of 2019.

Speaking on the development, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Droom, said, “Droom has seen tremendous growth over the past three and half years in terms of adoption by buyers/sellers, number of categories and listings, geographical presence, and GMV/transactions. It has irrevocably changed how automobiles are bought and sold online by creating robust tech and AI bases Ecosystem services tools fit for the 21st century. These tools focus on elements such as trust, transparency, pricing, and convenience. We are delighted to have a major investor like Toyota Tsusho Corporation backing us in this round. This partnership will play a major role in Droom’s journey ahead by helping us realise our growth potential, both in India and internationally. We are fortunate to have long standing support of Lightbox, Beenext and Beenos for believing in us very early on and supporting us relentlessly last 4 years. On the backdrop of Droom’s upcoming international expansion, we are excited to partner with Ellison Investments for helping us expand our investors base in Asia.”

Toyota Tsusho Corporation, said, “We were impressed that Droom has rapidly established its leadership position as the largest online marketplace to buy and sell automobiles in India. Sandeep is an exceptional and visionary founder and Droom also has solid management team. We and Droom are sharing the same vision, which is bringing trust and transparency to the transactions of automobiles. We believe that this partnership contributes the establishment of highly transparent transaction of automotive the wholesome development of auto market of any developing countries, by combining Droom’s technologically advanced platform and our various automotive business experience of all over the world.

Including this latest round, Droom has raised a total funding of $93 million since its inception. The company raised $20 million Series C funding in July 2017, $25 million Series B funding in June 2016, $16 million Series A funding in July 2015 and $2 million in Seed round in June 2014.

In the automobile sector, Droom competes with the likes of Pitstop & Cartisan among others.

In April 2018, Pitstop raised $1.6 million in a Pre-Series A funding round from its existing investors Blume Ventures and Singapore-based Goldbell Group and in March, it also acquired Noida-based startup MotorWhiz, which offers mobile solutions for car services and repair jobs, in a part cash-part stock deal. Bengaluru-based Cartisan is also seed-funded by cricketer Yuvraj Singh through the YouWeCan ventures.

SAIF Partners backed car servicing platform Bumper has shut down its operations recently as it could not raise enough capital and there was not enough traction from users, according to a TechCircle report.

Droom, an automobile marketplace, has raised USD 30 million in Series D, led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation and co-led by Digital Garage of Japan.

The funds will be used to further strengthen Droom's domination in the online automobile marketplace segment in India. It will also invest in further developing its Machine Learning and AI capabilities.

The company also signed an MoU with Toyota Tsusho Corporation for expansion in South East Asia.

It claims to acquire 70 percent of the online automobile market share in India, generating close to USD 700 million in gross revenue and USD 15 million in net revenue with the listed GMV of USD 3.5 billion in past three years.

The company aims to double its gross merchandise value to USD 1.4 billion by end of 2018 and USD 3.5 billion by 2019. The company plans to go for an IPO by end of 2019.

"We are targeting emerging international market and selected nine countries which at least have 25 million internet users," said Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom.

The round also saw participation from Ellison Investments, an Asia-based investment manager, existing investors and a number of institutional investors and family offices from China, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, according to an official statement.

Founded in April 2014 by former Shopclues founder Sandeep Aggarwal, Droom is a marketplace for new and used automobiles and services and competes with the likes of CarTrade and CarDekho.

Proceeds from the latest funding round will be used to strengthen its domestic operations as well as to facilitate its long pending plans to expand internationally. The tech-led platform will also invest heavily in further developing its machine learning and AI capabilities, per a company statement.

Droom also signed an MoU with Toyota Tsusho Corporation to expand internationally in Southeast Asia. In an interaction with DEALSTREETASIA last year, Aggarwal had said that as part of its international foray, Droom plans to first launch operations in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore.

The latest funding round comes less than a year after the Gurgaon-based firm raised a $20-million Series C round led by Integrated Asset Management and existing investor Digital Garage. That round also had also seen the participation of a number of Asian institutional investors and family offices, along with existing investors Lightbox, Beenext and e-commerce operator Beenos.

With this latest round, the company’s total funding stands at around $95 million so far.

The company claims to generate close to $700 million in gross revenue and $15 million in net revenue with close to 250,000 auto dealers in more than 500 cities across India on its platform and 27.3 million monthly visitors.

It aims to double its gross merchandise value to $1.4 billion by end of 2018 and $3.5 billion by 2019. Droom plans to go public by the end of next year.

“On the backdrop of Droom’s upcoming international expansion, we are excited to partner with Ellison Investments for helping us expand our investor base in Asia,” said Aggarwal.

He further said the partnership with Toyota Tsusho will play a major role in realising Droom’s growth potential, both in India and internationally.

Online automobile marketplace Droom on Thursday said it has raised USD 30 million (around Rs 2,032 crore), led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation and Digital Garage of Japan.

Toyota Tsusho Corporation is a part of Japanese auto maker Toyota Group.

The series D round also saw participation from Ellison Investments, an Asia-based investment manager, as well as many existing investors and institutional investors and family offices from China, Hong Kong and South East Asia, Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told reporters here.

He added that with this round, the company has raised about USD 95 million (around Rs 6,437 crore) till date.

"The funds will be used to further strengthen our operations in India as well as expand to South East Asian markets like Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam among others," he added.

Besides the funding, Droom also inked an agreement with Toyota Tsusho Corporation that will help it expand internationally.

The company will invest USD 8-10 million towards international expansion, he said, adding that its India business would continue to account for over 90 percent of its revenues for the next two years.

"The Indian market continues to hold great potential. As per estimates, the auto market (including vehicle sales and after-sales services like servicing and insurance) is expected to be about USD 350 billion in size by 2022 with 6-8 percent being online," he said.

Asked if the company was looking at an IPO, Aggarwal said it is on the company's radar.

"We will look at listing when we get to a net revenue of about USD 100-110 million. While we have a net revenue of about USD 16.5 million, we are expecting strong growth and with international expansion on the cards, we see us going for the IPO by end of 2019," he said.

He said the company is generating close to USD 700 million in gross revenue with the listed gross merchandise value (GMV) of USD 3.5 billion on its platform.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is an online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and related services.

In July last year, Droom had raised USD 20 million (around Rs 130 crore) in Series C funding led by Integrated Asset Management and Digital Garage. That round had seen participation from Lightbox, Beenos and Beenext.

Prior to that, it had raised a seed funding of USD 1.5 million and USD 4 million in May and October 2014, respectively, followed by Series A round of Rs 100 crore in June 2015.

The funding round also saw participation from Asia-based investment manager Ellison Investments, along with many existing investors and prominent institutional investors and family offices from China, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, according to a company release.

"The funds will be used to further strengthen Droom's domination in the online automobile marketplace segment in India, as well as to make its ecosystem service tools more scalable and to expand its international presence," it said.

The technology-led platform also plans to invest heavily in developing its machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.

The company said it plans to go for an initial public offering (IPO) by the end of 2019.

Meanwhile, Droom also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Toyota Tsusho Corporation to expand international presence in Southeast Asia.

In the past three years, the company claims it has acquired 70 per cent of the domestic online automobile market share, generating close to USD 700 million in gross revenue and USD 15 million in net revenue, with the listed gross merchandise value (GMV) of USD 3.5 billion.

It has close to 2.5 lakh auto dealers on its platform and 27.3 million monthly visitors.

"Droom has seen tremendous growth over the past three and half years in terms of adoption by buyers and sellers, number of categories and listings, geographical presence, and transactions. It has changed how automobiles are bought and sold online by creating robust tech and AI bases ecosystem services tools," said Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and chief executive officer, Droom.

The company had raised USD 20 million from Integrated Asset Management and Digital Garage last July. Since its launch in 2014, it has raised more than USD 90 million in external funding.

Toyota Tsusho Corporation is a part of Japanese auto maker Toyota Group.

The series D round also saw participation from Ellison Investments, an Asia-based investment manager, as well as many existing investors and institutional investors and family offices from China, Hong Kong and South East Asia, Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told reporters here.

He added that with this round, the company has raised about USD 95 million (around Rs 6,437 crore) till date.

"The funds will be used to further strengthen our operations in India as well as expand to South East Asian markets like Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam among others," he added.

Besides the funding, Droom also inked an agreement with Toyota Tsusho Corporation that will help it expand internationally.

The company will invest USD 8-10 million towards international expansion, he said, adding that its India business would continue to account for over 90 per cent of its revenues for the next two years.

"The Indian market continues to hold great potential. As per estimates, the auto market (including vehicle sales and after-sales services like servicing and insurance) is expected to be about USD 350 billion in size by 2022 with 6-8 per cent being online," he said.

Asked if the company was looking at an IPO, Aggarwal said it is on the companys radar.

"We will look at listing when we get to a net revenue of about USD 100-110 million. While we have a net revenue of about USD 16.5 million, we are expecting strong growth and with international expansion on the cards, we see us going for the IPO by end of 2019," he said.

He said the company is generating close to USD 700 million in gross revenue with the listed gross merchandise value (GMV) of USD 3.5 billion on its platform.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is an online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and related services.

In July last year, Droom had raised USD 20 million (around Rs 130 crore) in Series C funding led by Integrated Asset Management and Digital Garage. That round had seen participation from Lightbox, Beenos and Beenext.

Prior to that, it had raised a seed funding of USD 1.5 million and USD 4 million in May and October 2014, respectively, followed by Series A round of Rs 100 crore in June 2015. PTI SR MR MR

This is the Fortune 500 company’s first investment in the Indian startup and internet business ecosystem.

The Series D round also saw participation from Asia-based investment manager Ellison Investments as also existing investors along with several institutional investors and family offices from China, Hong Kong and South East Asia.

The Singapore and Gurgaon-based company has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Toyota to expand its services overseas to markets such as Indonesia and Thailand.

Including the latest round of funding, Droom, which competes with the likes of Temasek and Warburg Pincus-backed CarTrade and Google Capital and Hillhouse Capital-backed CarDekho, has raised about $95 million in equity financing.

The capital will be used to hone the technology end of the platform and will see Droom invest heavily in further developing its machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities to target a significant growth in scale.

“Droom has seen tremendous growth over the past three and half years in terms of adoption by buyers and sellers, number of categories and listings, geographical presence and GMV of transactions. This partnership (with Toyota) will play a major role for Droom as we realise our growth potential, both in India and internationally,” said Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Droom.

The company claims to generate about $700 million in gross revenue and $15 million in net revenue. The platform has about 250,000 auto dealers across over 500 cities in India.

"We were impressed that Droom has rapidly established its leadership position as the largest online marketplace to buy and sell automobiles in India. We believe that this partnership contributes to the establishment of highly transparent transaction of automotive and the wholesome development of auto market of any developing countries, by combining Droom’s technologically advanced platform and our various automotive business experience of all over the world," said a spokesperson for Toyota Tsusho Corporation.

The expansion will help Droom double its gross merchandise value to $1.4 billion by the end of 2018 and $3.5 billion by 2019. Droom is targetting a public listing through an IPO by the end of 2019.

Droom was founded in 2010 by Sandeep Aggarwal, who also started e-commerce portal Shopclues. The Gurugram-based company, which helps users buy and sell new and used automobiles, says the funds will be used to strengthen its market share and invest heavily in machine learning and AI. With this latest funding, Droom will expand internationally in south east Asia through Toyota. It competes with the likes of CarDekho and CarTrade.

"Droom has seen tremendous growth over the past three and half years in terms of adoption by buyers and sellers, number of categories and listings, geographical presence, GMV and transactions. This partnership will play a major role in Droom’s journey ahead by helping us realise our growth potential, both in India and internationally," said Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Droom.

The company claims to have a 70% market share in the online automobile marketplace generating close to $700 million in gross revenue and $15 million in net revenue.

"We believe that this partnership contributes to the establishment of highly transparent transaction of automotive and the wholesome development of auto market of any developing countries, by combining Droom’s technologically advanced platform and our various automotive business experience of all over the world," Toyota Tsusho Corporation said in a prepared statement.

With a team size of over 300, Droom has raised close to $95 million in six rounds of funding from investors including Lightbox, Beenext, and Beenos.

The company also announced a target of Rs. 275 crore as net revenue for 2018 and Rs.700 crores for 2019.

Droom's gross revenue growth is primarily driven by its largest dealer-focused platform, growing C2C selling format, adoption of ecosystem services tools and its enterprise business including bulk buying and selling for ride sharing companies.

With four different revenue streams and ecosystem services tools, Droom will achieve its net revenue target, which includes core transactional platform of used and new vehicle transactions, premium subscription charges, advertising and selling of products and ecosystem services developed in-house, such as its highly popular algorithmic pricing engine Orange Book Value and auto inspection-verification service provider Eco.

Moreover, Droom's Ecosystem service tool Droom credit and its consumer-to-consumer sales will be major contributors to the increased revenue along with business-to-consumer transactions going forward.

Droom is planning an initial public offering (IPO) by the end of 2019 and profitability by the end of 2018.

"It's been more the 40 months for us being operational and we have marked a tremendous growth of 300 percent in last year with burn rate at under three percent gross revenue. This year, we will be more focused on deepening our presence in first 100 cities in India with our B2C dealers network, C2C selling format, Droom credit, QuickSell (C2B) and Droom Enterprise," said Droom founder and CEO, Sandeep Aggarwal.

India's domestic automobile sector has grown immensely to emerge as the third largest in the world, valued at about USD 125 billion, with an expected jump of USD 75 billion by 2020. Droom's vision is to create, promote and increase the share of the online segment in automobile transactions, which presently is at one percent of the overall figure.

The company also announced a target of Rs. 275 crore as net revenue for 2018 and Rs.700 crores for 2019.

Droom's gross revenue growth is primarily driven by its largest dealer-focused platform, growing C2C selling format, adoption of ecosystem services tools and its enterprise business including bulk buying and selling for ride sharing companies.

With four different revenue streams and ecosystem services tools, Droom will achieve its net revenue target, which includes core transactional platform of used and new vehicle transactions, premium subscription charges, advertising and selling of products and ecosystem services developed in-house, such as its highly popular algorithmic pricing engine Orange Book Value and auto inspection-verification service provider Eco.

Moreover, Droom's Ecosystem service tool Droom credit and its consumer-to-consumer sales will be major contributors to the increased revenue along with business-to-consumer transactions going forward.

Droom is planning an initial public offering (IPO) by the end of 2019 and profitability by the end of 2018.

"It's been more the 40 months for us being operational and we have marked a tremendous growth of 300 percent in last year with burn rate at under three percent gross revenue. This year, we will be more focused on deepening our presence in first 100 cities in India with our B2C dealers network, C2C selling format, Droom credit, QuickSell (C2B) and Droom Enterprise," said Droom founder and CEO, Sandeep Aggarwal.

India's domestic automobile sector has grown immensely to emerge as the third largest in the world, valued at about USD 125 billion, with an expected jump of USD 75 billion by 2020. Droom's vision is to create, promote and increase the share of the online segment in automobile transactions, which presently is at one percent of the overall figure. (ANI)

The company is aiming at doubling its annualised sales and gross merchandise value from about Rs 4,000 crore to Rs 8,000 crore by December 2018 and Rs 18,000 crore by 2019. The company has also announced goal for net revenue at Rs 275 crore for 2018 and Rs 700 crore for 2019.

The reason behind this optimism is the single digit burn rate of the company. Droom spends less than 4% of Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) on marketing and even less than 3% on operating cost of the company. So, the company has to just recover less than 3% to turn profitable. Unlike other e-commerce platforms, which burn around 12-15% on operating cost. Droom’s gross revenue growth is primarily driven by its largest dealer focused platform, growing C2C selling format, adoption of ecosystem services tools and its enterprise business including bulk buying and selling for ride sharing companies.

Droom’s four different revenue streams and its ecosystem services tools will help the company achieve its net revenue target. These include its core transactional platform of used and new vehicle transactions, premium subscription charges, advertising and selling of products and ecosystem services developed in-house, such as its algorithmic pricing engine Orange Book Value and auto inspection-verification service provider Eco.

Droom’s ecosystem service tool Droom Credit and its consumer-to-consumer sales will be major contributors to the increased revenue along with business-to-consumer transactions going forward. Commenting on the estimated growth figures, Sandeep Aggarwal, founder & CEO, Droom, said, “It’s been more the 40 months for us being operational and we have marked a growth of 300% in last year with burn rate at under 3.0% of gross revenue. This year we will be more focused on deepening our presence in first 100 cities in India with our B2C dealers’ network, C2C selling format, Droom credit, QuickSell (C2B) and Droom Enterprise. Furthermore, along with our ecosystem services generating revenue we are looking forward to a healthy contribution from the recently launched electric vehicle and commercial vehicle ‘Taxi’ categories.”

India’s domestic automobile sector has grown immensely to emerge as the third largest in the world, valued at about $125 billion, with an expected jump of $75 billion by 2020. Droom’s vision is to create, promote and increase the share of the online segment in automobile transactions, which presently is at 1% of the overall figure.

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The company also announced a target of Rs. 275 crore as net revenue for 2018 and Rs.700 crores for 2019.

Droom's gross revenue growth is primarily driven by its largest dealer-focused platform, growing C2C selling format, adoption of ecosystem services tools and its enterprise business including bulk buying and selling for ride sharing companies.

With four different revenue streams and ecosystem services tools, Droom will achieve its net revenue target, which includes core transactional platform of used and new vehicle transactions, premium subscription charges, advertising and selling of products and ecosystem services developed in-house, such as its highly popular algorithmic pricing engine Orange Book Value and auto inspection-verification service provider Eco.

Moreover, Droom's Ecosystem service tool Droom credit and its consumer-to-consumer sales will be major contributors to the increased revenue along with business-to-consumer transactions going forward.

Droom is planning an initial public offering (IPO) by the end of 2019 and profitability by the end of 2018.

"It's been more the 40 months for us being operational and we have marked a tremendous growth of 300 percent in last year with burn rate at under three percent gross revenue. This year, we will be more focused on deepening our presence in first 100 cities in India with our B2C dealers network, C2C selling format, Droom credit, QuickSell (C2B) and Droom Enterprise," said Droom founder and CEO, Sandeep Aggarwal.

India's domestic automobile sector has grown immensely to emerge as the third largest in the world, valued at about USD 125 billion, with an expected jump of USD 75 billion by 2020. Droom's vision is to create, promote and increase the share of the online segment in automobile transactions, which presently is at one percent of the overall figure.

The central character of many journeys, stories and experiences, Indian taxis are one of the most familiar sights on urban roads.

With its latest category, 'Taxis', pioneering online automobile transactional marketplace, Droom, has ensured a new lease of life to these iconic vehicles by enabling buyers and sellers of used taxis to transact over the platform.

These pre-owned taxis will be available at a starting price range of Rs. 1,00,000, and upwards.

Sellers and buyers can easily obtain the fair prices of these vehicles with the help of Orange Book Value (OBV) and can also order the Droom ECO certified inspection report to get the better idea about the condition of the vehicle.

The used taxis can be bought and sold by buyers and sellers pan-India.

"Droom is the largest online automobile platform in India and we endeavor to add every possible automobile related category to provide the widest collection of vehicles as per buyer needs. We received a lot of queries from interested buyers for used taxis, hence we decided to include such vehicles in our list of offerings," said founder and CEO, Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

"Additionally, pre-owned taxis further diversifies our product type and adds a unique dimension to the burgeoning vehicle listings on our platform, thus enabling us to reach out to newer clients and markets," Aggarwal added.

Although Droom currently sells such taxis only to individual dealers and sellers through its B2C and C2C operations, it aims to tie up with large taxi aggregators and local taxi vendors in near future.

The online platform with its unique ecosystem services tools, quality vehicles and focused marketing efforts has amassed a huge client base over the last few years, and the addition of used taxis is set to further strengthen its stance as India's premier online marketplace for buying and selling automobiles. (ANI)

With its latest category, 'Taxis', pioneering online automobile transactional marketplace, Droom, has ensured a new lease of life to these iconic vehicles by enabling buyers and sellers of used taxis to transact over the platform.

These pre-owned taxis will be available at a starting price range of Rs. 1,00,000, and upwards.

Sellers and buyers can easily obtain the fair prices of these vehicles with the help of Orange Book Value (OBV) and can also order the Droom ECO certified inspection report to get the better idea about the condition of the vehicle.

The used taxis can be bought and sold by buyers and sellers pan-India.

"Droom is the largest online automobile platform in India and we endeavor to add every possible automobile related category to provide the widest collection of vehicles as per buyer needs. We received a lot of queries from interested buyers for used taxis, hence we decided to include such vehicles in our list of offerings," said founder and CEO, Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

"Additionally, pre-owned taxis further diversifies our product type and adds a unique dimension to the burgeoning vehicle listings on our platform, thus enabling us to reach out to newer clients and markets," Aggarwal added.

Although Droom currently sells such taxis only to individual dealers and sellers through its B2C and C2C operations, it aims to tie up with large taxi aggregators and local taxi vendors in near future.

The online platform with its unique ecosystem services tools, quality vehicles and focused marketing efforts has amassed a huge client base over the last few years, and the addition of used taxis is set to further strengthen its stance as India's premier online marketplace for buying and selling automobiles. (ANI)

The emergence of shared mobility concept has led to an increased demand for commercial cars across segments from small to luxury.

However, not many can afford new cars and to provide easy access to such taxi drivers in terms of pricing and availability, online marketplace for buying and selling of used cars Droom is launching taxis.

These pre-owned taxis will be available at prices starting from ₹1 lakh.

Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder, Droom, told BusinessLinethat “It is difficult for a driver to invest ₹5-6 lakh and pay high road tax to start his business.

“With this initiative, Droom will decrease the cost of starting a business and a buyer will get a certified, inspected taxi with the fair price evaluated through Orange book value. Buyers can easily opt for a loan from Droom credit and make a hassle-free transaction online.”

Besides, the Droom ECO-certified inspection report will give the buyers a better idea about the condition of the vehicle.

“We received a lot of queries from interested buyers for used taxis, hence, we decided to include such vehicles in our list of offerings.

“Additionally, pre-owned taxi further diversifies our product type and adds a unique dimension to the burgeoning vehicle listings on our platform, thus enabling us to reach out to newer clients and markets,” he added. Although Droom sells such taxis only to individual dealers and sellers through its B2C and C2C operations, it aims to tie up with large taxi aggregators and local taxi vendors, he said.

Droom, which started its operations in 2015, claims to have captured about 65 per cent of the automobile transactions share online.

Having raised around $65 million in five rounds, Droom said that it has a $489-million in annualized GMV growing at 220 per cent and is present in over 500 cities across the country.

In India, taxis are one of the biggest contributors in the commercial automobile transaction, including car, bus and trucks.

In India, every year around 34 lakh used and new commercial automobile sold out of which only 0.01 per cent is through online platforms, Aggarwal said, adding that Droom is the first player to enter this segment with a vision of having all the commercial vehicle available on its platform and enable buyers and sellers a hassle-free transaction of used commercial automobile.

“As there is merely 0.01 per cent in the online market for commercial vehicles in India, we are aiming to add more commercial vehicle category on its platform to increase online transaction percentage and holds the maximum share of it,” Aggarwal added.

As they prepare to expand overseas, Indian startups like Droom, Pepperfry and HealthifyMe are planning to hire foreign students from top universities including Ivy League schools for newer markets. Foreign interns are being hired ahead of expansion in order to not only familiarize them with the company's operations but also prepare a pool of manpower for handling overseas markets.

For instance, Droom, an online marketplace for buying and selling used cars, started by ShopClues founder Sandeep Aggarwal, has started a 'Global Internship Program'. Under the program, the startup has been closely working with B-schools, primarily in the US, Canada and UK for attracting talent for internships at its India office.

"If we want to be a global name we want to have a global talent.. So, this year we will be hosting for the first time management and engineering interns from the likes of Harvard, Wharton and Stanford under the Global Internship Program. Hopefully, a lot of them will go back with full-time job offers. As we expand internationally this year, we also feel that people coming from different background and geographies will only add to the operations at Droom," said Aggarwal.

Having already set up a subsidiary in the US, Droom is now looking at expansion into Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines in the first half of this year, followed by South Asian and MENA region in the second half.

"The foreign interns will be working from our Indian office and will be eventually deployed at our new international locations such as Indonesia or Philippines," said Aggarwal.

For online furniture marketplace Pepperfry and lifestyle tracking platform HealthifyMe who are also working on building their global footprint, the move will happen by early next year.

"We are looking to expand. However, we don't have any program for foreign interns going on. But as we scale, this is something that we are evaluating. It will be slightly longer than this year as in early part of next year when our expansion would have become more meaningful," said Ambareesh Murty, co-founder, Pepperfry. The online furniture player is looking at markets such as Middle East, Australia and South East Asia based on the favourable demographics in these regions.

Among these, HealthifyMe already boasts of interns from the likes of MIT Sloan, and Columbia University who have worked for their Indian operations. However, going forward, the startup which is expanding its footprint into Latin America, Middle East and South East Asia, is looking at hiring interns next year from the top global universities for these markets.

"Hiring locally for global market will happen next year for us. So far, we have had interns from MIT Sloan and Columbia University for profiles of computer science, data science and management. We already have Stanford and other Ivy League alumni working with us but these are the ones who have relocated here," said Tushar Vashisht, co-founder and CEO of HealthifyMe which annually hires around 6-8 interns, 20 per cent of which come from abroad.

It is, however, the stipends where these startups vary a bit. While Droom offers a monthly stipend of Rs 75000 along with other amenities for international interns as against Rs 25000 for domestic interns from within India, Pepperfry offers anywhere between Rs 30000 and Rs 50000 per month.

HealthifyMe, on the other hand, offers the same stipend package for both domestic and international interns in the range of Rs 15000-20000 per month.

With most of the overseas expansion yet to fully take shape, the startups are hiring interns in the general management categories, even as they intend to hire for specific roles as operations gather momentum in the newer markets.

With an aim to empower sellers and help them enhance their online business strategies, Droom, India’s largest and pioneering online automobile transactional marketplace, successfully organized its Seller Summit in Mumbai. The event, held at Novotel Hotel, Juhu was attended by more than 300 dealers from multiple cities in western India, who traveled to Mumbai to be a part of this grand event.

The West India summit saw active participation of sellers from all the major cities in the region, including Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat, Nagpur and Nashik. The sellers who attended the Seller Summit included those have had a long-term association with Droom spanning 2.5 years as well as some new partners who partnered with Droom more recently. After the successful pilot launch and expansion of Droom’s C2B (Customer to Business) platform in Northern India, Droom also announced its plans to kick start the full-fledged operations of its C2B platform in Western India at the Summit. Droom used this opportunity to recognize its best performing sellers on the marketplace through it’s coveted Star Seller Awards. The accolades were given to sellers across various categories OBV Champion, Most Active Seller, Best Practices, Most Reviewed seller and Star Seller of the Year awards.

Speaking at the event, Rishab Malik, Co-Founder & SVP Business Development, droom.in said, commented, “Droom has the largest seller community in India with 2.15 lac sellers across 500 cities. Our platform has become the largest auto-portal by number of sellers, highest traffic in class and widest reach to over 500 cities in India and with almost 15,000 cr of listed automobiles on the platform. We have always been at the forefront to empower automobile sellers and offer them assistance with respect to technology and service requirements to help them sell more and faster at the most competitive prices. The West India Seller Summit was a huge success where hundreds of auto-dealers attended, some traveling hours from cities like Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat, Nagpur and Nashik.”

Through this event, Droom showcased it’s latest technologies and features for it’s dealers, hosted a seller panel for it’s top dealers in West India and provided a Q&A and opportunity for it’s partners to interact with it’s top management.

About Droom

Droom is India’s first and only online marketplace for buying and selling new and used automobiles. At over 65% of the automobile transactions market share online, Droom is the largest auto portal in India. Droom is not only the largest online automobile platform in India, but also the 3rd largest E-commerce company in India in terms of GMV. The automobile platform is category, seller, price, condition, and geography agnostic.

Droom platform has four marketplace formats i.e. B2C, C2C, C2B and B2B, and three pricing formats - Fixed Price, Best Offer and Auction. The platform offers wide range of categories from bicycle to plane and all automobile services such as warranty, RSA, insurance and auto loan. Droom uses data science to build trust at scale with a US Patent technology called Full Circle Trust Score. Droom has also built the de-facto pricing standard for used vehicles in India – OBV, which has a US patent. Droom has built the entire ecosystem for India so that the transaction for used automobiles can take place with least degree of information asymmetry and morale hazard.

It has built tech and data science heavy tools to create the entire ecosystem around used automobiles, including OBV (pricing engine), Eco (121 points vehicle inspection), History (200 mil vehicle history records), Discovery (dozens of pre-buying tools) and Credit (India’s first and only marketplace for used vehicles loans).

Droom is currently doing $489 Mil+ in annualized GMV growing at the rate of 220% Y/Y, 225K+ auto dealers (largest auto dealer platform in India), presence in 500+ cities across India (largest hyper local marketplace), 21.58 Mil+ monthly visitors, nearly 7 Mil+ app downloads and 5.5 Mil+ Facebook community.

Droom has the best unit economics as compared to any other E-commerce platform in India. The company spends less than 5% of GMV to run marketing and the entire cost of the company is less than 4% of GMV in terms of the net burn. Droom is the only E-commerce platform which has successfully built the cost advantage and sophistication of the tech platforms with the strong data science layer, nobody else has been able to do it in India.

Droom is founded by Sandeep Aggarwal, who previously founded ShopClues at his house in California in Oct 2010, which became 5th Unicorn in India by January 2016. Droom is a Singapore Holding Company with its subsidiary in India and United States. Droom has so far raised close to $65 million dollars in five rounds of funding. Droom is headquartered in Gurugram, India with a team size of 270+.

Beginning its new year in style, Droom, India’s largest and pioneering online automobile transactional marketplace, bagged two awards at the recently held Prime Time Awards 2017. Droom has won awards for its ecosystem marketing campaign ‘How Technology Beat Humans! It was awarded a Silver under the ‘Automotive Products & Services’ and a Bronze in the ‘E-Commerce & Web Services’ category.

The award-winning campaign, developed by Droom’s in-house marketing team in partnership with Contract Advertising, revolves around technology-led innovations introduced by Droom in pre-owned vehicle analysis and evaluation, an area that suffered from plain guesswork to vague assurances by sellers earlier. In fact, a pre-owned car buyer was seldom happy with a transaction as there was no quantitative mechanism to substantiate the pricing and he/she always felt to have landed up with an unfair deal.

The campaign highlighted Droom’s transformation of this scenario and building trust by leveraging its three key ecosystem tools, namely OBV (Orange Book Value), History, and Droom ECO, to accurately evaluate a used vehicle’s true condition, history and fair market value. These analyses are made based on completely scientific and mathematical algorithms as well as massive amounts of relevant historical data. For instance, OBV considers an array of parameters such as make, model, year, kilometers driven etc to give the fair market value of the vehicle in less than 10 seconds. Droom ECO takes this analysis further through physical inspection across more than 121 parameters! Additionally, History provides comprehensive history of used vehicles by utilizing available data of 20 crore out of 22 crore vehicles in India.

The ad campaign that highlighted these factors in a creative manner was effective across all the parameters of judgement. On the effectiveness quotient, it was seen that the campaign sharply increased the visitors to the marketplace increased by 67 percent to 90 million for the quarter, while the order volume increased by 33 percent. The marketing campaign was pivotal in making Droom the third-largest e-commerce player in terms of GMV in India, driving the growth of online used vehicle transactions on the platform.

About Droom

Droom is India’s first and only online marketplace for buying and selling new and used automobiles. At over 65% of the automobile transactions market share online, Droom is the largest auto portal in India. Droom is not only the largest online automobile platform in India, but also the 3rd largest E-commerce company in India in terms of GMV. The automobile platform is category, seller, price, condition, and geography agnostic.

Droom platform has four marketplace formats i.e. B2C, C2C, C2B and B2B, and three pricing formats - Fixed Price, Best Offer and Auction. The platform offers wide range of categories from bicycle to plane and all automobile services such as warranty, RSA, insurance and auto loan. Droom uses data science to build trust at scale with a US Patent technology called Full Circle Trust Score. Droom has also built the de-facto pricing standard for used vehicles in India – OBV, which has a US patent. Droom has built the entire ecosystem for India so that the transaction for used automobiles can take place with least degree of information asymmetry and morale hazard.

It has built tech and data science heavy tools to create the entire ecosystem around used automobiles, including OBV (pricing engine), Eco (121 points vehicle inspection), History (200 mil vehicle history records), Discovery (dozens of pre-buying tools) and Credit (India’s first and only marketplace for used vehicles loans).

Droom is currently doing $489 Mil+ in annualized GMV growing at the rate of 220% Y/Y, 225K+ auto dealers (largest auto dealer platform in India), presence in 500+ cities across India (largest hyper local marketplace), 21.58 Mil+ monthly visitors, nearly 7 Mil+ app downloads and 5.5 Mil+ Facebook community.

Droom has the best unit economics as compared to any other E-commerce platform in India. The company spends less than 5% of GMV to run marketing and the entire cost of the company is less than 4% of GMV in terms of the net burn. Droom is the only E-commerce platform which has successfully built the cost advantage and sophistication of the tech platforms with the strong data science layer, nobody else has been able to do it in India.

Droom is founded by Sandeep Aggarwal, who previously founded ShopClues at his house in California in Oct 2010, which became 5th Unicorn in India by January 2016. Droom is a Singapore Holding Company with its subsidiary in India and United States. Droom has so far raised close to $65 million dollars in five rounds of funding. Droom is headquartered in Gurugram, India with a team size of 270+.

When the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Bengaluru-based start-up Log 9 Materials, Akshay Singhal, needed to recruit a senior researcher, the company brought in someone on the recommendation of its head of development. There was no formal interview process to vet the candidate’s suitability to work at the three-year-old graphene research and development company. A key team member vouching for the person’s expertise was considered enough. Exactly 22 days later, this senior researcher was fired for being indiscreet about company information.

Singhal has since resolved not to hire any personnel without an official interaction or proper background check.

The challenges a start-up faces in its formative years are manifold. But whether it’s finding a product or service that meets a critical need, developing a business model, raising and managing funds in order to scale or managing and motivating employees, the one thing every entrepreneur needs is the right set of people. “Ask any investor or second-time entrepreneur and they will tell you that 90% of an early-stage start-up’s success is about the team and just 10% can be attributed to the quality of the idea,” Shradha Sharma and T.N. Hari write in their book Cut The Crap And Jargon: Lessons From The Start-up Trenches.

Ironically, this very aspect is often neglected. Without a formal procedure for recruitment, and, in some cases, the absence of a human resources department, many early-stage start-ups end up hiring people mainly on the basis of references. This type of quick, informal decision making doesn’t allow them to realistically gauge whether the person is suitable for the job. As a result, they’re often left in the lurch when candidates, who appeared great on paper, quit abruptly. “In the first one year, our attrition rate was almost 30-35%,” says Manav Jeet, managing director (MD) and CEO, Rubique, a Mumbai-based financial technology company. Jeet says employees hired on the basis of their skill set and past experience were unable to adapt to the start-up culture.

What to look for

Hiring for an early stage start-up is very different from recruiting for a corporation. “In an established company, you can boast about the salary, perks, work-life balance, swanky office, provident fund, leave policies, unlike in a start-up, where you boast about vision, learning opportunity and ownership,” says Tamanna Dhamija, co-founder of Baby Destination, an online maternity and parenting lifestyle management start-up.

The first 10 hires in a start-up are critical because this core team will set the tone and culture of the organization. “At this stage, interviewing people, writing the job description, etc., should be the founder’s responsibility,” says Ganesh Krishnan, a serial entrepreneur and investor who has worked with over 15 start-ups. Only after scaling to a certain size should start-ups consider outsourcing recruitment of key positions.

“One must see if the candidate has any record of being a risk taker, fast riser in his/her career, the ability to take on more responsibilities than his/her own job,” says Dedeepya Ajith John, associate director, Knowledge & Advisory, SHRM India. She adds that entrepreneurs must also carefully consider whether they want to hire for potential, not experience, in this sector. “Be wary of people who have a sense of entitlement or do not want to work hands on,” says Subodh Kumar, co-founder and CEO, Liv.ai, a Bengaluru-based speech-recognition start-up.

Set up a recruitment process

In a start-up, every employee exit has the potential to disrupt the workflow, or even leave the company’s operational plans in disarray. The situation is exacerbated by the time and effort that goes into hiring a replacement. Which is why it’s imperative for start-ups to evolve a formal recruitment policy, even in the early stages.

Droom, a three-year-old online marketplace for buying and selling used vehicles, has put together a list of core competencies and values expected from employees, including key aspects such as customer centricity, passion, energy, frugality, learning from mistakes, strong work ethic, and humility. The company has also devised a 2/2 metric system that assigns a point each to the deliverables of the job and whether they are a good cultural fit for Droom. Anyone who doesn’t score on both metrics doesn’t make the cut.

Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Droom, explains, “Since candidates come from different educational backgrounds, age groups, regions, and work in different functional areas, we felt the need to have a common thread to bind this diverse workforce to build a strong institution, and hence came up with these core values.”

After its bad experience, Log 9 Materials has introduced a one-month probation period that gives new recruits space to experience the company culture. The company, in turn, gets time to evaluate employee performance. Singhal says the system is working for them. “We have retained 60% of the people hired in the last year, and I believe that is the most dedicated and passionate lot I could have got.”

When it’s time to let go

So you made a bad hire and find yourself dealing with a challenging employee. How do you know when it’s time to part ways? In ‘Cut The Crap And Jargon: Lessons From The Start-up Trenches’, authors Shradha Sharma and T.N. Hari share two tips:

■ Underperformers are easy to spot. But employees who are on the cusp of underperformance, especially if they report to you or are in key roles even two levels below you, can weaken the foundation of your start-up. Keep a close eye on them. To see improvement after feedback but later be faced with the same issue again can be frustrating. In such cases, it’s important to take a quick call.

■ Accusations of discrimination are particularly hard to disprove in start-ups, as they are unlikely to maintain documentation that can withstand scrutiny. It can be particularly damaging if your start-up is in the midst of a fund-raiser, as such allegations can scare off investors. Side-step any potential drama by setting up a continuous process of feedback. It should be delivered in writing and include actions agreed upon and timelines.

With an aim to empower sellers and help them enhance their online business strategies, Droom, India’s largest and pioneering online automobile transactional marketplace, successfully organized its Seller Summit in Mumbai. The event, held at Novotel Hotel, Juhu was attended by more than 300 dealers from multiple cities in western India, who traveled to Mumbai to be a part of this grand event.

The West India summit saw active participation of sellers from all the major cities in the region, including Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat, Nagpur and Nashik. The sellers who attended the Seller Summit included those have had a long-term association with Droom spanning 2.5 years as well as some new partners who partnered with Droom more recently. After the successful pilot launch and expansion of Droom’s C2B (Customer to Business) platform in Northern India, Droom also announced its plans to kick start the full-fledged operations of its C2B platform in Western India at the Summit. Droom used this opportunity to recognize its best performing sellers on the marketplace through it’s coveted Star Seller Awards. The accolades were given to sellers across various categories OBV Champion, Most Active Seller, Best Practices, Most Reviewed seller and Star Seller of the Year awards.

Speaking at the event, Rishab Malik, Co-Founder, SVP Business Development, droom.in said, commented, “Droom has the largest seller community in India with 2.15 lac sellers across 500 cities. Our platform has become the largest auto-portal by number of sellers, highest traffic in class and widest reach to over 500 cities in India and with almost 15,000 cr of listed automobiles on the platform. We have always been at the forefront to empower automobile sellers and offer them assistance with respect to technology and service requirements to help them sell more and faster at the most competitive prices. The West India Seller Summit was a huge success where hundreds of auto-dealers attended, some traveling hours from cities like Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat, Nagpur and Nashik.”

Through this event, Droom showcased it’s latest technologies and features for it’s dealers, hosted a seller panel for it’s top dealers in West India and provided a Q&A and opportunity for it’s partners to interact with it’s top management.

About Droom

Droom is India’s first and only online marketplace for buying and selling new and used automobiles. At over 65% of the automobile transactions market share online, Droom is the largest auto portal in India. Droom is not only the largest online automobile platform in India, but also the 3rd largest E-commerce company in India in terms of GMV. The automobile platform is category, seller, price, condition, and geography agnostic.

Droom platform has four marketplace formats i.e. B2C, C2C, C2B and B2B, and three pricing formats - Fixed Price, Best Offer and Auction. The platform offers wide range of categories from bicycle to plane and all automobile services such as warranty, RSA, insurance and auto loan. Droom uses data science to build trust at scale with a US Patent technology called Full Circle Trust Score. Droom has also built the de-facto pricing standard for used vehicles in India – OBV, which has a US patent. Droom has built the entire ecosystem for India so that the transaction for used automobiles can take place with least degree of information asymmetry and morale hazard.

It has built tech and data science heavy tools to create the entire ecosystem around used automobiles, including OBV (pricing engine), Eco (121 points vehicle inspection), History (200 mil vehicle history records), Discovery (dozens of pre-buying tools) and Credit (India’s first and only marketplace for used vehicles loans).

Droom is currently doing $489 Mil+ in annualized GMV growing at the rate of 220% Y/Y, 225K+ auto dealers (largest auto dealer platform in India), presence in 500+ cities across India (largest hyper local marketplace), 21.58 Mil+ monthly visitors, nearly 7 Mil+ app downloads and 5.5 Mil+ Facebook community.

Droom has the best unit economics as compared to any other E-commerce platform in India. The company spends less than 5% of GMV to run marketing and the entire cost of the company is less than 4% of GMV in terms of the net burn. Droom is the only E-commerce platform which has successfully built the cost advantage and sophistication of the tech platforms with the strong data science layer, nobody else has been able to do it in India.

Droom is founded by Sandeep Aggarwal, who previously founded ShopClues at his house in California in Oct 2010, which became 5th Unicorn in India by January 2016. Droom is a Singapore Holding Company with its subsidiary in India and United States. Droom has so far raised close to $65 million dollars in five rounds of funding. Droom is headquartered in Gurugram, India with a team size of 270+.

Here are some expectations from the sector, ahead of this year's Union Budget:

Droom

"The capital inflow for Digital India has significantly slowed down in 2016 and 2017, if you exclude the top 5 investments each year. So, with this budget, I would like to see specific measures undertaken by the Government to promote start-ups, entrepreneurship and Digital India. I truly hope the cost of capital in this country goes down, the capital becomes more accessible, there is no capital gain tax on start-up exits, there is no dividend taxes on start-ups, and an Indian incorporated company can list outside of India without having to be listed in India after an IPO. I also hope that the government significantly improves Internet infrastructure with high speed internet, low cost data plans and less choppiness in mobile Internet. I would also like government to have a higher sensitivity around level playing for home grown companies and local entrepreneurs versus foreign digital /Internet companies," said Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom.

Here are some expectations from the sector, ahead of this year's Union Budget:

Droom

"The capital inflow for Digital India has significantly slowed down in 2016 and 2017, if you exclude the top 5 investments each year. So, with this budget, I would like to see specific measures undertaken by the Government to promote start-ups, entrepreneurship and Digital India. I truly hope the cost of capital in this country goes down, the capital becomes more accessible, there is no capital gain tax on start-up exits, there is no dividend taxes on start-ups, and an Indian incorporated company can list outside of India without having to be listed in India after an IPO. I also hope that the government significantly improves Internet infrastructure with high speed internet, low cost data plans and less choppiness in mobile Internet. I would also like government to have a higher sensitivity around level playing for home grown companies and local entrepreneurs versus foreign digital /Internet companies," said Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom.

Some of the ways through which digital advertisers can optimise their efforts include:

*Granular analysis/effective performance management

Digital advertisers have access to numerous tests and tools to measure the effectiveness of their digital campaigns across keywords, digital ads, sponsored posts, etc. In such a data-rich environment, only considering average figures may not help identify ‘rotten apples’ or non-performing marketing initiatives. Marketers today have various weapons in their digital arsenals, each with individual performance information. If you need marketing budgets to be aligned closely with the business performance, then digital can be used more effectively. In order to optimise marketing costs, it is necessary for marketers to carry out an in-depth pre- and post-analysis of their various marketing strategies.

Rather than being influenced only by grand totals and averages, a meticulous understanding of the contribution of each and every element towards the end result helps in formulating optimisable alternatives. This is possible in the case of digital advertising. In case of digital, the entire data is trackable, scannable, traceable and analysable. If you can empower digital ads with analysis, you can use them more effectively.

*Choose an ideal marketing mix

In case of traditional advertising, a brand had no option but to deploy huge amounts of marketing budgets to TVCs aired across channels to get some sort of results. However, digital works on a ‘pay per use’ model, wherein one can deploy small amounts of budgets on different digital campaigns and analyse if the campaign is successful or not.

Developing an ideal mix of digital advertising tactics helps to offset losses suffered from less traction in one medium with gains in others. SEO, sponsored posts, social media page ads and video blogs are some of the major methods of digital advertising.

Q. It's been 3 years since you started. How has Droom evolved over these years?

When we started Droom, everyone thought there is already Quikr, OLX, CarWale, CarDekho, CarTrade, Zigwheel and Gaadi.com , then why would India need an eighth company in the same vertical?!

"What's wrong with Sandeep Aggarwal? He created ShopClues, which was such a unique concept. Why he is doing something in this crowded space?" These are just some of the doubts people voiced quite openly. This is how they perceived Droom three years back.

But in three years we have clearly shown that online classifieds is a separate category altogether. They can operate in 150 categories of used items like dog wanted, accountant wanted, lawyer wanted, car for sale, house for sale, or looking for a match for a girl.

Discovery platforms are all about rich content, videos, ratings and reviews etc. However, we created a new category called end-to-end transactions in a marketplace setting for automobiles, which was unheard of in this country.

Some of our products have become the de-facto industry standards like Orange Book Value is now considered to be the only benchmark for used vehicle pricing in India. We have got 10 million plus monthly visitors, which may not be the case with many well-funded e-commerce websites in India.

IIT Roorkee has the rare distinction of having work carried out in its campus being published in Nature publishing journals and other international journals with high repute. The five top most journals that scientists from all over the world aspire for. research by Prof. Shailly Tomar, Department of Biotechnology developed medicine for Chikungunya; Prof. Ranjana Pathania, Department of Biotechnology developed path-breaking technique to help reverse drug resistance; Prof. K.L. Yadav, Department of Physics to develop a low- cost method of Osteoarthritis; Prof. Davinder Kaur, Department of Physics developed breakthrough In Memory Device Technology; the Early Earthquake Warning system developed and installed by Prof. M. L. Sharma, Department of Earthquake Engineering; Prof. N.K. Padhy and Prof. E. Rajasekar from Department of Electrical and Architecture respectively for smart grid project; Morphological Study of Ganga, Sharda and Rapti Rivers by Prof. Z Ahmad from our Civil Engineering department, or the ‘Low-cost Jamun Solar Cells’ developed by Prof. Soumitra Satapathi’s group in the Department of Physics are some of the outstanding work being undertaken by the researchers at the Institute to address critical problems of the society.

In the past year, the Institute witnessed many student and faculty achievements. Prof. G.D. Ransinchung R.N., Mr. Surender Singh (Research Scholar), Prof. Praveen Kumar and Prof. Manoranjan Parida received IRC National Award on Road Research; Prof. Kaustav Chatterjee, Department of Civil Engineering was selected for the John Carter Award 2017 for his outstanding research potential in Geomechanics. Sidharth Arora, PhD Scholar in the Department of Biotechnology for being awarded the Biotechnology Ignition Grant (BIG) by BIRAC for his project on production of thermo-tolerant and acid-stable Phytase in a novel solid-state fermentation (SSF) bioreactor. A team of students Ekdeep Lubana, Anisha Godha, Ankit Bagaria and Utkarsh Saxena won the First prize of 25,000 Euro at the Ericsson Innovation Awards 2017, in a global competition at Nobel Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. The IITR team developed an app SNAP which uses a precision agriculture technology based on principles of hyper-spectral imaging of crop leaves to determine the optimum fertilizer inputs for the crop. Also, Mr. Raja Jain, 3rd year student, Department of Biotechnology and Ms. Nimisha Gupta, 4th year student, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Roorkee, have Developed EvaCool, a Low-Cost Evaporative Air Cooling Solution and emerged as the winners in the finals of Go Green in the City 2017. An IIT Roorkee team consists of Mr. Rohit Joshi and Mr. Renju K Kokkattu was selected as the winners of B-Plan Competition of Droom’s merchandise. Additionally, the IIT Roorkee PhD student Mr. Repaul Kanji won France-India 24H Chrono Entrepreneurship Challenge.

The press statement further said that the celebration, which was hosted from 11 am to 3 pm, was attended by a large number of students and educators from the Umeed Foundation. Interesting games like racing, puzzles, collecting balls, etc were held at the event. The members of the Droom team and the kids from Umeed Foundation together participated in all the contests. Post the activity session, numerous gifts such as puzzle games, sound and light toys, dolls and soft toys, pencil boxes, creative games etc. were distributed to the kids who were between the age group of 8 years to 25 years. Sandeep Aggarwal Foundation, supported by Droom, organized a special lunch fiesta for the children and the educators. A range of stationary items including pens, sketch pens, pencils, drawing books, chart papers, etc. were donated to the foundation.

Commenting on the initiative, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom, and said, “Christmas and the holiday season is all about spreading love and sharing with one another. I am sure that each and every kid in this world eagerly waits for Santa to come and surprise them with gifts. We believe our small step must have brought smiles on the faces of these very talented and enthusiastic children of the Umeed Foundation. We hope that it was a fun-filled and memorable afternoon for the children. I am thankful to Umeed Foundation for giving us the opportunity to spend time with the children and spread joy this holiday season. Sandeep Aggarwal Foundation and Droom will continue to focus on touching more lives in the new year.”

Overall, Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad and Bangalore emerged as the top four markets for Droom.

Bajaj Pulsar, Hero Passion Pro and Bajaj Discover emerged as the top performing bikes, while Harley Davidson, Suzuki Hayabusa and Kawasaki Ninja ruled the roost when it came to super bikes.

Moreover, Maruti Suzuki Swift, Maruti Suzuki Swift Dzire and Honda City were preferred by car buyers.

"We have witnessed a considerable increase in the percentage market share of cars and bikes transactions moving online and this is a clear indicator of the increased spending power and online adoption of the Indian consumers. At USD 180 billion annually, India is the third largest automobile market in the world and only 0.6 percent is online penetrated," said founder and CEO, Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

"We believe India will surpass USD 300 billion in total market size annually by 2022 and nearly 6 percent to 7 percent of this market can be enabled by online platforms," he added.

The report also revealed that the average age of bikes sold on Droom was 63 months, for scooters it was 57 months and 37 months in case of super-bikes.

Cars with an average age of 71 months fared the best on the platform, while luxury and super cars had an average age of 64 months.

The average selling price for bike was Rs. 42,039; for scooters was Rs. 32,166. The average selling price for cars was Rs. 5,44,478.

Overall, Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad and Bangalore emerged as the top four markets for Droom.

Bajaj Pulsar, Hero Passion Pro and Bajaj Discover emerged as the top performing bikes, while Harley Davidson, Suzuki Hayabusa and Kawasaki Ninja ruled the roost when it came to super bikes.

Moreover, Maruti Suzuki Swift, Maruti Suzuki Swift Dzire and Honda City were preferred by car buyers.

"We have witnessed a considerable increase in the percentage market share of cars and bikes transactions moving online and this is a clear indicator of the increased spending power and online adoption of the Indian consumers. At USD 180 billion annually, India is the third largest automobile market in the world and only 0.6 percent is online penetrated," said founder and CEO, Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

"We believe India will surpass USD 300 billion in total market size annually by 2022 and nearly 6 percent to 7 percent of this market can be enabled by online platforms," he added.

The report also revealed that the average age of bikes sold on Droom was 63 months, for scooters it was 57 months and 37 months in case of super-bikes.

Cars with an average age of 71 months fared the best on the platform, while luxury and super cars had an average age of 64 months. The average selling price for bike was Rs. 42,039; for scooters was Rs. 32,166. The average selling price for cars was Rs. 5,44,478.

The electric scooters (available on the Droom platform) are priced between Rs 20,000-42,400, while the electric cars are priced in the range of Rs 8-13 lakh.

Other partner brands include Okinawa Scooters and Yobykes.

"The launch of this category is in line with the Indian government's focus on electric vehicles, keeping in mind their environmental benefits, contribution in reducing the economy's spends and their long-term cost effectiveness," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told .

As a promotional scheme, Droom will offer 100 per cent cashback on the booking amount for all new bookings of electric vehicles, he added.

"We have close to 1.32 lakh active listings already. We have 670 electric vehicles listed with us. The number is bound to increase as more and more OEMs will be launching electric vehicles in the future," Aggarwal said.

For now, the commission rates for Droom for electric vehicles is the same as petrol or diesel vehicles, he said adding that it believes slightly higher commissions can be charged in the category. SR SBT

"The launch of this category is in line with the Indian government's focus on electric vehicles, keeping in mind their environmental benefits, contribution in reducing the economy's spends and their long-term cost effectiveness," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told PTI.

As a promotional scheme, Droom will offer 100 per cent cashback on the booking amount for all new bookings of electric vehicles, he added.

"We have close to 1.32 lakh active listings already. We have 670 electric vehicles listed with us. The number is bound to increase as more and more OEMs will be launching electric vehicles in the future," Aggarwal said.

For now, the commission rates for Droom for electric vehicles is the same as petrol or diesel vehicles, he said adding that it believes slightly higher commissions can be charged in the category.

Other partner brands include Okinawa Scooters and Yobykes.

"The launch of this category is in line with the Indian government's focus on electric vehicles, keeping in mind their environmental benefits, contribution in reducing the economy's spends and their long-term cost effectiveness," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told PTI.

As a promotional scheme, Droom will offer 100 per cent cashback on the booking amount for all new bookings of electric vehicles, he added.

"We have close to 1.32 lakh active listings already.

We have 670 electric vehicles listed with us. The number is bound to increase as more and more OEMs will be launching electric vehicles in the future," Aggarwal said.

For now, the commission rates for Droom for electric vehicles is the same as petrol or diesel vehicles, he said adding that it believes slightly higher commissions can be charged in the category.

Of this, only $1 billion is online. Droom enjoys 65 per cent share of this segment. He estimates online penetration would grow from 0.6 per cent now to 7 per cent by 2021, resulting in business of Rs 20 billion.

Experts claim that colour plays a significant role in car sales across the world, including at the time of resale. White and silver cars promise the maximum returns.

According to a study by marketing information services firm JD Power, northern states of India are biased towards white with 66 per cent of car buyers choosing it. South India picks white 34 per cent. West and south markets were found to be slightly more experimental with colour choices with colours like red and maroon forming about 13 per cent of the sales.

However, industry analysts believe the conventional patterns related to choice of colours are set to change with more women entering the market. Female buyers of cars stand at about 10 to 12 per cent currently. Women have been found to be more biased towards brighter shades.

Drive in, Drive Out to open today

The two-day DNA Auto Show-Drive in, Drive Out will be inaugurated on Saturday by Santosh Verma, co-founder and director of My Eco Energy at the NSE Hall number 5 off Western Express Highway in Goregaon East.

You will get a chance to see and buy top carmakers’ popular models and superbikes with exciting offers. Don’t forget to pick up some cool car accessories too.

The DNA Auto Show will also offer a vintage car show courtesy Vintage & Classic Car Club of India and WIAA (cars owned by Nitin Dossa) and a peek into the future with Students of Veermata Jijabai Technical Institute presenting their work.

Droom's 'OBV for Mobile' feature analyses mobile phones based on their make, model, age, condition, and accessories, besides many other factors, to come up with a fair, unbiased, and independent market value for a used phone.

OBV for Mobile works on artificial intelligence engine and has created India's largest database of used mobile phones to give the user a valuation report.

About two years ago, Droom had launched Orange Book Value (OBV), India's first and only artificial intelligence based pricing engine that provide the fair market value of any used vehicle under 10 seconds for free.

This product has gained huge traction and has delivered over 160 million pricing queries so far with over 10 million people trying OBV each month, either via its website or mobile app. With OBV for Mobile, Droom is expanding its ecosystem services tools beyond automobile to other lucrative secondary markets such as smartphones.

"India is the world's second largest smartphone market and will have over 500 million smartphones by end of 2018. At the time when smartphone adoption is growing very rapidly, the average duration of ownership is coming down equally rapidly. So, if you want to find out the right price of your used mobile phone and sell it for some extra cash or are considering exchanging it for a new model, Droom's OBV for Mobile can give you fair market value under 10 seconds for free," said founder and CEO Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

"We are confident that this new offering by Droom will help both sellers and buyers, and will emerge as a game changer for buying and selling used mobile phones in the country," added Aggarwal.

To gauge the Fair Market Value for a phone, users can log on to www.orangebookvalue.com and select 'OBV for Mobile' on the input panel.

They can then add the make, model, and age of the phone and select its condition using the Condition Meter to generate the approximate price range for that device.

The prices can be refined further to more accurately reflect the phone's actual market value by selecting available accessories and the working condition of individual components, such as camera, display, Wi-Fi, etc. OBV for Mobile comes with another Artificial Intelligence technology to evaluate the price of the used mobile phone by itself.

This feature is known as "Self-Diagnostic Test". In this case, the seller or buyer can run this test on the smartphone he/she wants to sell/buy. The test runs through all the technical components of the smartphone such as speakers, mic, Screen, camera, power and volume buttons etc. Based on this self-diagnostic test, 'OBV for mobile' provides a fair market value of the smartphone. Droom has added a dedicated section for used mobile pricing on the OBV iOS and Android apps, in addition, it allows app users to download the Free Pricing Report on their smartphones.

Droom's 'OBV for Mobile' feature analyses mobile phones based on their make, model, age, condition, and accessories, besides many other factors, to come up with a fair, unbiased, and independent market value for a used phone.

OBV for Mobile works on artificial intelligence engine and has created India's largest database of used mobile phones to give the user a valuation report.

About two years ago, Droom had launched Orange Book Value (OBV), India's first and only artificial intelligence based pricing engine that provide the fair market value of any used vehicle under 10 seconds for free.

This product has gained huge traction and has delivered over 160 million pricing queries so far with over 10 million people trying OBV each month, either via its website or mobile app. With OBV for Mobile, Droom is expanding its ecosystem services tools beyond automobile to other lucrative secondary markets such as smartphones.

"India is the world's second largest smartphone market and will have over 500 million smartphones by end of 2018. At the time when smartphone adoption is growing very rapidly, the average duration of ownership is coming down equally rapidly. So, if you want to find out the right price of your used mobile phone and sell it for some extra cash or are considering exchanging it for a new model, Droom's OBV for Mobile can give you fair market value under 10 seconds for free," said founder and CEO Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

"We are confident that this new offering by Droom will help both sellers and buyers, and will emerge as a game changer for buying and selling used mobile phones in the country," added Aggarwal.

To gauge the Fair Market Value for a phone, users can log on to www.orangebookvalue.com and select 'OBV for Mobile' on the input panel. They can then add the make, model, and age of the phone and select its condition using the Condition Meter to generate the approximate price range for that device.

The prices can be refined further to more accurately reflect the phone's actual market value by selecting available accessories and the working condition of individual components, such as camera, display, Wi-Fi, etc. OBV for Mobile comes with another Artificial Intelligence technology to evaluate the price of the used mobile phone by itself.

This feature is known as "Self-Diagnostic Test". In this case, the seller or buyer can run this test on the smartphone he/she wants to sell/buy. The test runs through all the technical components of the smartphone such as speakers, mic, Screen, camera, power and volume buttons etc. Based on this self-diagnostic test, 'OBV for mobile' provides a fair market value of the smartphone. Droom has added a dedicated section for used mobile pricing on the OBV iOS and Android apps, in addition, it allows app users to download the Free Pricing Report on their smartphones. (ANI)

Currently in pilot mode, the service is available across all 500 cities where Droom has presence. Droom claims the orange book value service contributes almost 30% of its traffic generating over 10 million from its overall traffic of 31.2 million visitors.

For the mobile phone segment, the service will be moetised through a licensing model as also on the basis of lead generation. “We intend to license our technology to large horizontal ecommerce players who can then offer it to their buyers and sellers and also mobile OEMs and other resellers. Besides, we have a lead generation where large resellers can use ‘OBV for Mobile’ for leads and pay us on a per-lead basis,” said Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of Droom.

While Droom did not share details of the new service’s contribution to volumes or revenues, Aggarwal expects that the mobile segment will contribute upto 5% of the company’s revenues over the next 1 year.

Gurgaon based startup Droom is developing a third party app which when downloaded will determine whether your phone's camera, sensors, screen, Bluetooth buttons are working properly. It will also give an instant valuation range for smartphones within a few seconds through an app.

The app when fired will determine the model, age and brand of the mobile phone in real time. "We plan to license our technology to large horizontal ecommerce players who can then offer it to their buyers and sellers," said company CEO Sandeep Aggarwal tells Moneycontrol on the sidelines of GES 2017.

Droom already offers instant price discovery for a used vehicle on its website under its valuation service called Orange Book Value.

The technology is likely to be an extension of OBV. It will be the first time any company will be offering a service to discover price of a used mobile phone and instantly list on a marketplace platform.

Founded in 2014 by former Shopclues CEO Sandeep Aggarwal, Droom has so far raised close to USD 65 million from investors such as Digital Garage, Beenext, Beenos, Lightbox Ventures and Axis Capital Partners

Droom’s B-plan competition challenged the participants to develop various innovative business strategies that could popularize Droom’s C2C marketplace format, wherein individuals will be able to list their vehicles on the platform to be purchased directly by buyers. Drafting the proposal was no mean feat in itself; as the participants were expected to undertake extensive on-ground research as well as create a detailed blueprint of the proposed plan of action, with 35% and 65% marks assigned to each respectively. With the brightest business minds across the country devoting their energies to developing the perfect strategy, the Droom jury evaluated them on their strategic response to actual business situations experienced by the platform.

Commenting on the competition, Mr. Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom, said, “Droom B-Plan Competition was designed to provide a much-needed platform to the emerging entrepreneurial talent so they can showcase their capabilities. All the entries were rich in passion, business vision and disruptive strategizing, and it was a tough for the evaluators to shortlist the seven most outstanding entries. Each of the seven shortlisted teams displayed exemplary business acumen and were pitch perfect in their reasoning behind the business plans they proposed. However, it was Team Rockets from IIT Roorkee that emerged as a clear leader due to its holistic approach as well as a detailed and systematic blueprint for policy implementation. We aim to run this competition as an annual series with the objective of engaging with fresh business talent in India.”

The seven finalists included EHFAR, Gladiator Kings, Individual, Panda Bears, Swift & Clear, Team Rockets and The Three Musketeers. The 1st and 2nd runners-up received INR 50,000 and INR 25,000 respectively, along with pre-placement interviews and merchandise from Droom.

His investment ticket size in each startup ranges from anywhere between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 1.5 crore.

Aggarwal said he had plans to invest a total of $3 million (Rs 19.5 crore approximately) in 12 Indian startups this year but had refrained due “sluggish market conditions.” He intends to complete his investments soon, although they will spill over to the next calendar year.

He has been investing in companies for the last two years in small amounts. “I had invested in five startups in 2015, followed by seven in 2016.” Aggarwal is interested in startups in healthcare, data science, artificial intelligence sectors, and horizontal and vertical marketplaces.

“While most of my investments will be in India, I am looking to invest in horizontal marketplaces in South East Asia,” Aggarwal, who has till now invested $1.5 million (Rs 10 crore) in two years, said. He also said that the biggest chunk of his investment came in 2016 at $700,000 (Rs 5 crore).

LionBird is an early-stage investor and provides support for startups utilising technology to improve offline processes in healthcare, commerce, and the enterprise segment. The VC firm was founded by Chaim Friedman, who co-founded laboratory informatics company Starlims and sold it to Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories. Aggarwal told VCCircle that the people running LionBird made angel investments in their personal capacities in Droom and Shopclues.

WittyFeed was founded in 2014 by SRM University graduates Vinay Singhal (CEO), Shashank Vaishnav (CTO), and Parveen Singhal (content head).

Though the sale and purchase of gadgets, furniture, vehicles and even real estate have been happening on Facebook groups in India as well, the company now plans to bunch up all such posts and groups under a common tab on the app.

“People in Mumbai can visit Marketplace by tapping on the Marketplace icon inside the Facebook app,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

Given Facebook’s unparalleled reach and legendary stickiness, it might seem that the social network is likely to taste runaway success. After all, Facebook is an inseparable part of the lives of millennials, who account for a chunk of the social network’s core user group. Besides, if the high popularity of some groups, such as the ones that help people find accommodation, is any indicator, it might seem like cracking social commerce will be child’s play for the Menlo Park, California-headquartered company.

However, some homegrown classifieds companies VCCircle spoke to sounded unfazed by the Marketplace initiative—they said it may face several challenges in India as the market dynamics here are different from those in developed countries.

Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom was the chief mentor to the participants on the show. We spoke to Agarwal to understand his learnings and how the brand Droom benefitted from this association. Excerpts

Q. Why did Droom choose to tie-up with MTV Dropout? How does the brand positioning of both match?

If you think about youth from searching for a boyfriend or girlfriend, or a life partner, taking admission in a university, buying a house, looking for a home loan, buying a vehicle.

Youth is our main audience and they are taking most of their important decisions through the internet. In past, MTV has created shows such as Roadies that have been a sensation with youth. So, when we got to know about Dropout, we found an opportunity to reach them.

Secondly, entrepreneurism is the new in-thing in the country and with some of the internet giants that have become big, youth are keen to become entrepreneurs.

We thought that this genre and theme will work for us. Since we started Droom, we have run 5 national level TV campaigns, two large digital campaigns, and allocated a sizable digital budget, but out of all the money spent, MTV Dropout was one of the best ROI (return on invest) for our spends.

The journey which began few months ago has finally reached its pinnacle and now the trio, Ajay-Priyansha-Bagga are all set to face the real world and give wings to their entrepreneurial dreams. The awesome threesome has braved 10 other dropouts, excelled grueling challenges featuring the biggest companies - Pepperfry, Kamasutra to name a few, survived being pitted against their own teammates and emerged victorious. They have truly showcased what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

Speaking about the finale of MTV Dropout Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Ferzad Palia, Head, Youth, Music and English Entertainment, Viacom18 said, “The concept of Dropout Pvt. Ltd. was unique and we did expect it to connect with a lot of youngsters out there who dare to dream big. I hope this show acts as a propellant for young minds to take a chance. The winners of the show have shown exceptional growth and we wish them luck for their future endeavors!”

On judging the contestants for the finale, Sandeep Aggarwal, CEO & Founder of Droom said, “It was wonderful to be a part of Droom MTV Dropout as a Mentor. The show had an interesting concept of helping ‘Dropouts’ who wanted to be successful entrepreneurs. The concept is very close to my heart as I have had the experience of dropping out from my comfort zone and starting out on my own to build some of the biggest brands in the ecommerce industry in India. I hope that I have been able to inspire youth to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams and to provide the right mentorship. I would like to wish all the winners the best of luck for their successful future ahead and in my view, people who have not been declared winner or even did not get a chance to participate in the program are still my heroes. I hope to continue with my passion to mentor youngsters and inspire more to realise their start-up dream”

“Priyansha, Bagga and I, each of us possesses a unique set of talent which together, makes our team a winner. Besides, We also share a great chemistry with each other, which makes work, a lot more fun. MTV has given us the platform to catapult our start-up dreams and we will surely not disappoint the people who have supported us”, shared CEO of the new start-up, Ajay Vishnu.

On being announced winners of the first season of Dropout Pvt. Ltd., an excited Priyansha Jain shared, “This definitely feels awesome! Dropout Pvt. Ltd. is a unique and one of a kind show and to be crowned the winners of the first season is simply unbelievable. Coming so far in the competition was definitely challenging with 13 different entrepreneurial personalities on the show. All hard work and struggle seems worth now!”

Karmaditya Bagga added, “The best moment of my life was when I grabbed those keys which Rajeev Sir threw towards us. It was like I have grabbed my entire dream in my fist. It was the best feeling in the world!”

From dreaming big to making it big, these aspiring entrepreneurs have come a long way long way through the guidance provided to them by their mentors and top guns in the industry. Here’s wishing these dropouts good luck as they kickstart their exciting and rewarding entrepreneurial journey!

Organisations like Samsung, GSK, Paytm, MakeMyTrip.com, Uber, Nagarro, Droom and Shopclues, have taken several measures to help their workforce tackle pollution. South Korean multinational Samsung has installed over 100 air purifiers in their Indian headquarters in Gurgaon.

Next door to Samsung, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) giant GSK is also taking several steps to help its employees avoid exposure to pollution. "The administration and employee health and safety departments are issuing regular health and travel advisories. The air quality is being monitored on a daily basis and the PM2.5 level is expected to be below 50 inside the office," said a GSK spokersperson.

Gurgaon-based Shopclues and Nagarro are continuously updating employees about the air quality levels. Multiple other organisations have installed air filters in offices. Noida-based Paytm is one such organisation.

"Realising that the pollution in Delhi NCR is a public health emergency, we are taking necessary measures to improve the air quality in our offices by getting air purifiers and more plants," said Manav Jain, assisstant vice-president, Human Resources, Paytm.

He added that since polluted air could trigger coughs, the company had distributed masks among its employees and was offering health assistance to employees. Multiple organisations are also distributing air purifying masks to their employees and advising them to use these outdoors.

"We have distributed high-quality N95 anti-pollutions masks to all our employees. We have also installed air purifiers on all office floors. Additionally, we are conducting training programmes for employee awareness and have rolled out a guide to educate our employees on how to stay safe in such conditions," said Sandeep Agarwal, founder and CEO, Droom.

The industry was hurt as a significant number of sales, especially in semi-urban and rural areas, was dependent on cash.

According to Sridhar V, partner, Grant Thornton India, the growth of passenger vehicles (PV) as a segment was clearly affected for the initial couple of months post demonetization, but the note ban had a minimal impact over the rest of the last one year.

The industry has consistently sold more than it did in the months of November and December 2016, with sales peaking at 300 thousand vehicles in September 2017, he added.

Three months after the government demonetised high-value currency notes, Rajiv Bajaj, MD of one of the leading two- and three-wheeler manufacturers Bajaj Motors, had said during a press meeting that the move had hurt the industry.

Around 2,200 people employed with the 81 component suppliers with which his company sources material were said to have lost their job due to the sudden loss in demand.

Entrepreneurship has moved from being the geek that no one likes to be the guitar-playing heartthrob of the college. Everyone wants to be him or be with him. But this is also where the problem arises, in their efforts to copy the guitar king; their tuning seems to fall apart, as it is not based on the passion for music but a me-too attitude. What next? They sell the guitar in scrap and go back to being the regular kid in college.

2017, So Far

The past few years have seen the birth of many start-ups in the Indian ecosystem. While the count was at a staggering 6,000 in 2016, 2017 so far has seen 800 new kids on the block, according to Tracxn. According to their reports, while 500 startups made it to their deadpool list (failed ventures) in 2016, the number stands at 180 for 2017, so far. At the same time, Indian start-ups have raised over $8 billion in 2017 and when pitted against 2016’s $4.6 billion, the number is at a high even though the number of deals has dropped.

Any Takers?

This goes on to prove that India is building a conducive environment for start-ups, funding has almost become omnipresent and like Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog, has been quoted saying, “All we are looking for are great innovative ideas”.

Needless to say that the Indian start-up ecosystem has seen the birth of some great ideas but there are also some that fail to be of anyone’s understanding. A case to keep in mind is the startup Mokshshil.com that allows one to pre-book their funeral service. The founding of these start-ups has raised many questions; from who really is prepared for death to do we have to depend on technology for even death?

Some of them might even find the funding but customers fail to use their product. A global example is the Valley-based Juicero, which raised $120mn from investors for its $400 juicer blender, has failed to find a market and is thus, shutting down.

In India, a sector that has fallen prey to this is e-commerce. From start-ups like Bookmybindi or Footsy (online marketplace for just socks) to Bookmyballoon, the e-retail sector has seen the rise of many that fail to convince users. Sadashiva NT, angel investor and formerly with Babajob, believes that it is the vertical space of e-commerce that has found takers which might not be successful. Horizontal e-commerce platforms are the ones that enable selling from a varied range of categories while vertical platforms are the ones that are more in-depth or focussed. “The problem with many players in the vertical space is that they are selling products already available from the horizontal players. The horizontal e-commerce sector already has a few major players like Flipkart, Amazon etc,” said Sadashiva.

Says Abhishek Gautam, COO Auctions of car portal operator GirnarSoft: “The probability of flood damaged cars hitting the market is very high. We expect almost 80% of these cars to be resold in the used cars market.” According to Director of car service provider CarXpert Y.S. Katoch, there are a large number of flood-damaged cars in the market. Most have been repaired as that is covered by insurance.

As water damage can be irreversible and extensive, inspect a car carefully before you buy. Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Droom.in, an online marketplace for buying and selling new and used automobiles, says, “The issue is not knowing a car is flooddamaged and paying a high price to buy it.”

• Signs that a car is flood damaged
• Foul smell from carpet and seat cover.
• Rusting on exposed screws under the dashboard, door latches, hood latches and seat rail channel.
• Mud/silt deposit on wiring.
• Signs of mud/silt deposit and rusting on the fuse box cover, centre console panel, gear lever panel and door beadings.
• Water line around the engine.

One of the best ways to avoid being saddled with a damaged vehicle is to buy from only organised players. Says Gautam, “Buy only certified used cars preferably with a warranty for 6-12 months.” A red flag is a car that is advertised in newspapers as distress sale. Also avoid buying used cars from unorganised dealers as they generally don’t follow any quality checks.

Check the insurance policy. Contact the insurer to find out if any major claims have been made. Vikram Chopra, CEO of used car portal cars24, adds, “Ask for the service history of the car and read thoroughly. A flooded car would have been sent for servicing. Workshops gives a record of all the work done on the job card.”

Another way of evaluating used cars is by using History available on https://vehiclehistory.in/ . It is a national repository of vehicle records, with a database of approximately 20 crore vehicles. It can tell a prospective buyer how many times a vehicle has changed hands, if there is any history of accident claim, if it is a flood damaged car or the ownership is disputed. To generate a report, a user needs to enter the vehicle’s VIN or registration number. If the vehicle.

Popular online platforms like Droom, CARS24, QuikrCars and Truebil have seen sharp sales spike in the range of 2x to 5x growth with even luxury used cars gaining traction. "The pre-Diwali to dhanteras period has seen a healthy spike of 30-50% for a period of 4 weeks. We have grown stronger than last year by 2x margin and on an industry level too, the jump in growth has been consistent," said Vikram Chopra, CEO, CARS24. Big online platforms like Droom, for example, have grown 5x this festive year (September 21-October 20, 2017) as compared to previous year (entire October 2016) with sales more skewed towards four wheelers than two wheelers. "Our gross merchandise value has doubled last month to this due to the festive rush and the average sale price has also jumped as more cars were sold than two-wheelers. Last year 33% of overall sales was cars which has now jumped to 55%," said Puneet Bhaskar, AVP, Droom.

Pent up demand has contributed to rising sales. "In the month of October, MoM growth has seen an uptick as people deferred buying decisions because of GST. This demand cumulated in the festive month of October," said Shubh Bansal, co-founder & CMO, Truebil. The launch rush in new cars help correct prices in used car market, he added. "With so many new launches in new car segment, the prices of used cars of the same model have decreased," said Bansal. For example, an old model used Swift Dzire price has dropped by 5-10% as new Swift Dzire has huge demand, he said.

Discounts in new cars helped supply and fuelled demand. "Heavy discounts offered by car companies made people sell their old cars to acquire new ones. This is evident from the 20% MoM increase in the inventory on QuikrCars since August. Top models sold on QuikrCars are easy to drive hatchbacks like i10, WagonR, Swift, Alto. Luxury cars demand also spiked up during festive season," said Atul Tewari, COO, Quikr and head, QuikrCars.

The extent of festive rush for pre-owned cars becomes obvious from the fact that even financiers have clocked good disbursals.

"The used car loan segment grew at 75% month over month and the overall customer sentiment was very positive," said Aditya Kumar, founder & CEO of Qbera.com.

Droom is in a fiercely competitive place. What according to you is your USP?
Droom is steadily gaining a lot of positive traction which has not only enriched the industry, but also provided the buyers with a lot of options. Droom has established itself as a renowned player in its domain with a clear edge over its competitors by being a comprehensive online automobile transactional platform rather than just being an informative one. Droom offers an end-to-end transactional platform along with various ecosystem services tools such as ‘Orange Book Value’ (OBV)- pricing engine for assessment of a fair market value in 10 seconds, ‘History’ for sourcing vehicle history records, ‘Eco’ for vehicle inspection, ‘Droom Discovery’ that offers dozens of pre-buying tools and ‘Droom Credit’- India’s first and only marketplace for used vehicles loans. Droom thus becomes a one-stop destination for conducting transactions on pre-used automobiles via the digital mode, ensuring greater transparency and authority to the consumer. Furthermore, Droom has presence in more than 500 cities in India and has over 192,000 auto dealers onboard which gives Droom a clear edge over competition in its domain.

How well is this market growing?
The used car automobile transactional sector is growing at a rapid pace. So much so, that for every new vehicle transacted in the market, 1.7 old vehicles are also being sold. Furthermore, the arrival of online marketplaces has ensured transparency in the valuation process. With the salaried middle-class demography burgeoning in India, it can be safely said that the pre-owned automobile market will be in high demand in the future, contributing to the rapid growth of the sector.

What is the marketing strategy for Droom?
Droom has adopted an aggressive marketing approach this year. We have allocated a budget of Rs 225 crore towards marketing and advertising during the current financial year. We aim to launch specific commercials describing Droom’s various offerings and adopt an omni-channel marketing strategy covering both ATL and BTL platforms. Through characters such as Bittuji, we want to reflect the impact of Droom’s assortment of products and services on the quintessential user, who earlier found it difficult to find a vehicle that fits her/his needs and budget but with Droom, can finally manage to own their dream wheel at the best possible prices. Additionally, Droom is focused on mentoring the youth and helping budding entrepreneurs. I have been committed to mentoring and guiding the youth to become successful entrepreneurs. Droom has partnered with ‘MTV Dropout’ as the ‘Title Sponsor’. The show aims to provide a platform for dropouts to make their startup dreams a reality. I am one of the Masters in the show. MTV Dropout is a one of its kind show that documents the journey of the world’s first-ever startup formed on television

What are your marketing plans going ahead?
We have recently launched super successful TVCs that explain the use and importance of our ecosystem services tools such as History, Droom Eco and Orange Book Value. We also plan to extensively expand our network across Tier-II and III cities in the country which are rapidly emerging as high revenue potential markets. Droom, with its scientific algorithms and unique approach to value determination of used cars, has created a position of influence in the market. Through these marketing efforts, we want to further create awareness for the Droom as a brand that provides the most unparalleled experience during purchase or selling of pre-owned vehicles.

Since the company is an online only platform, what according to you are the elements that differentiate you in the way you market yourself compared to some others who have a physical presence ?
Droom is an end-to-end transactional marketplace. No other offline or online portal provides such a comprehensive list of services, from pre-purchase information gathering to comparison and post-purchase maintenance. Droom’s ingenious and never-before-seen ecosystem service tools provide answers to most of the possible queries of buyers. These tools ensure total transparency and provide the most accurate valuations by employing large amount of relevant historical and empirical data.
Furthermore, our massive presence across 500+ cities ensures our presence as the largest hyperlocal market. Our dealer network spans across 192k auto dealers on board, making us the biggest auto dealer portal in India. Our rapid GMV expansion from 0 to 4k in less than three years also keeps us ahead of competition.

YouTube released the Q3’17 India Ads Leaderboard, a list of the top ads that Indian audiences consumed the most during the third quarter of the year. These 10 ads clocked an astounding 3.5 million hours of watch time, with mobile devices accounting to 69 per cent of total watch time. As per App Annie*, every month, 180 million Indians are watching YouTube on the mobile.

Long format ads have emerged as the winning formula for Indian viewers this quarter. Five out of the 10 most-watched ads in the quarter were over one-minute long. This clearly points to audiences’ willingness to invest their time and attention on ads that are narrative-driven – Xiaomi, Oppo, Panasonic, Droom and MuscleBlaze all capitalised on this. Oppo and Panasonic also played up on the Diwali mood. Anticipating consumer demand for electronic gadgets during this festive season, Oppo’s new six-and-a-half minute ad for F3 device garnered close to 30 lakh views in around 20 days.

The YouTube Ads Leaderboards showcases the most creative ads that people choose to watch. The list represents the top 10 ads on YouTube in India that resonated most with audiences over the past month and celebrates the brands that performed best through a combination of popularity and promotion.

With this, the company will also strengthen its ecosystem services like Droom credit, Orange Book Value (OBV), Eco, History and recently launched Discovery.

Moreover, the company is eyeing an initial public offering (IPO) by mid-2019.

Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, said: “We would be going for the next round of funding by 2018 for $50 million. So that we can operate our ecosystems services like Credit, OBV, Eco, History and Discovery as an individual company. To further strengthen them, we would like to invest in the individual platform."

Aggarwal is optimistic that Droom will turn profitable by the second half of 2018, if no further investment is made in the company.

"Theoretically, we don’t need capital to turn profitable,” commented Aggarwal. He further added, the reason for the optimism is the fact that we spend less than 4 per cent of Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) on marketing and even less than 3 per cent on operating cost of the company. So we will have to just recover less than 3 per cent to turn profitable. Unlike other e-commerce platforms, which burn around 12-15 per cent on operating cost.”

The 34-month-old company has grown over 300 per cent in past one year with GMV of Rs 4,000 crore. It is likely to touch Rs 5,000-5,500 crore GMV business by December this year.

Aggarwal vouches that out of the total online business of used car sales and allied industries, Droom approximately do 65 per cent of the business and rest 35 per cent is done by other players.

The company till now has raised $65 million, including the fifth round of $20 million, which was majorly led by Integrated Asset Management, Digital Garage and Lightbox.

By collating and presenting in-depth and comprehensive data about various aspects pertaining to various two-wheeler and four-wheeler vehicles, Droom Discovery plugs the information gap and helps prospective vehicle buyers make smartest buying decisions.

All relevant information can be accessed by users with just a few clicks to conduct a thorough research on their favorite vehicles. This convenient accessibility to all the key data helps buyers at all stages of vehicle purchase.

"The entire idea is to make the process of buying, selling, and discovering vehicles simpler, more convenient, and hassle-free for the end-user. This is why we have launched Droom Discovery, a one-stop platform which will make vehicle discovery and comparison almost effortless for Indian buyers," said founder and CEO Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

Adding to this, Aggarwal said that Droom is empowering costumers with Independent, comprehensive, data driven and free information to aid them in making the smartest buying decisions.

The platform will offer more than two dozen tools to users under three categories of tools - Product, Category, and Industry. It provides information about the current price (ex-showroom and on road, for various cities), total cost of ownership, performance, fuel efficiency, etc.

It additionally helps in pricing research and displays ratings, reviews, and photo/videos of particular vehicle makes. Droom Discovery also lets users compare two or more vehicles side-by-side for features, prices, and specifications through the Vehicle Compare feature, and helps them in their budgeting assessments with EMI and Affordability Calculators. Moreover, it provides smart recommendations for buying used/new vehicles from Droom to match the specific requirements of every buyer.

However, it will also provide category-wise news and updates on the latest developments from the auto industry, as well as tips for vehicle maintenance, emergencies, DIY servicing for basic components etc. Other important information, such as the location of driving schools in a user's vicinity and glossary of commonly used automotive terms, is also available for users to access, making Droom Discovery the perfect vehicle buying assistant for all vehicle buyers! (ANI)

By collating and presenting in-depth and comprehensive data about various aspects pertaining to various two-wheeler and four-wheeler vehicles, Droom Discovery plugs the information gap and helps prospective vehicle buyers make smartest buying decisions.

All relevant information can be accessed by users with just a few clicks to conduct a thorough research on their favorite vehicles. This convenient accessibility to all the key data helps buyers at all stages of vehicle purchase.

"The entire idea is to make the process of buying, selling, and discovering vehicles simpler, more convenient, and hassle-free for the end-user. This is why we have launched Droom Discovery, a one-stop platform which will make vehicle discovery and comparison almost effortless for Indian buyers," said founder and CEO Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

"The entire idea is to make the process of buying, selling, and discovering vehicles simpler, more convenient, and hassle-free for the end-user. This is why we have launched Droom Discovery, a one-stop platform which will make vehicle discovery and comparison almost effortless for Indian buyers," said founder and CEO Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

The platform will offer more than two dozen tools to users under three categories of tools - Product, Category, and Industry. It provides information about the current price (ex-showroom and on road, for various cities), total cost of ownership, performance, fuel efficiency, etc.

It additionally helps in pricing research and displays ratings, reviews, and photo/videos of particular vehicle makes. Droom Discovery also lets users compare two or more vehicles side-by-side for features, prices, and specifications through the Vehicle Compare feature, and helps them in their budgeting assessments with EMI and Affordability Calculators. Moreover, it provides smart recommendations for buying used/new vehicles from Droom to match the specific requirements of every buyer.

However, it will also provide category-wise news and updates on the latest developments from the auto industry, as well as tips for vehicle maintenance, emergencies, DIY servicing for basic components etc.

The platform has captured the imagination of vehicle buyers with a simple and intuitive marketplace along with ecosystem services tools. Its efficient operational model has also helped Droom become the largest vertical marketplace and the largest hyperlocal marketplace. This troika of accolades has guaranteed Droom its undisputed stature as India's #1 and largest auto portal.

With a massive presence spanning 500+ cities, Droom has emerged as the default alternative for buyers and sellers across India interested in used as well as new automobile transactions. It has achieved an annualized GMV of 3,756 crores with a monthly traffic of 31.2 Mil+ visitors. It has also registered a stunning growth rate of 225 percent Y-o-Y, and aims to achieve a GMV of 7500 crores and full profitability by 2018.

"From being fifth in the list of the largest e-commerce companies in India last year, Droom's rapid growth to becoming the third shows the tremendous popularity it continues to gain amongst users. The achievement becomes all the more special as Droom is a core automobile oriented portal, thereby restricting its user base," said founder and CEO Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

"Our advanced algorithms, never heard before ecosystem services tools and a strong backend team are the main reasons behind our continued success. Going forward, we want to keep increasing transparency and best pricing as the driving forces behind our future operations to achieve further success," added Aggarwal.

Droom's achievements have been achieved without compromising on the needs of any of the stakeholders, which makes it all the more remarkable.

Due to the unique ecosystem services tools based on pure algorithm and science and unbiased, the prices arrived at are equivocally agreed upon by buyers and sellers. With an aggressive marketing strategy and continued research to develop more precise and unique services tools, Droom hopes to bag that elusive #1 e-commerce organization spot soon.

In order to enhance the C2C part of their business, Droom is inviting applications, to inspire budding minds, with the challenge of suggesting various extraneous steps to achieve the objective. The Droom B-Plan competition will identify the brightest business minds from across the country on the basis of their strategic response to actual business situations experienced by Droom.

The entries for Droom B-Plan competition are now open and the winners will be awarded with a cash prize of INR 1 lakh, along with a mentorship session with Sandeep Aggarwal and a pre-placement interview with Droom.

In addition to C2C, the online automobile transactional platform also functions in B2C, C2B and B2B marketplace formats. However, the company is now looking to push the C2C side of business where individual sellers can list their vehicles on the platform which enables individual buyers to make purchases directly. Looking to capture the segment further, Droom is inviting applications with suggestions on achieving this goal.

Applicants will be required to submit their plans in the form of a presentation which will need to include research on products, consumers and competitors. The proposals will also require description of features and functionality of the concept on websites and apps, advertising strategy, customer acquisition plan, partnership plan, and more.

Gauging and improving upon gaps in the C2C platform of Droom was also included in Droom MTV Dropout. Talking about the competition, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom said, “We hope that Droom B-Plan participants will offer some truly innovative, long-term and optimally efficient solutions to kick-start their professional journeys along with a chance to win the amazing prizes!”

Entries close on October 25 and the winners are to be announced on November 1, 2017. In addition to Sandeep Aggarwal himself, the competition will also be judged by top management of Droom. The first and the second runners-up will also get an opportunity for an interview, along with a cash prize of INR 50,000 and INR 25,000 respectively. For those who have been wanting to work in the environment of a startup and receive mentorship opportunities, this could be a great opportunity – if they have the right plans.

We spend hours thinking about our dream cars, sighing over Google images or magazine cut-outs and visualizing ourselves on the steering, feeling like the king of the world. But then reality takes over. Droom’s latest and out of the box campaign, featuring a similar such dreamer called ‘Bittuji’ through a music video, reflects the aspirations of many of us through him, and explains how Droom can help in making those dreams, true.

Commenting on the campaign, Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom said, “Droom’s ecosystem services tools have been gathering a massive response from users and we feel it’s time for us to market these services to mass audience and make them aware about these unbeatable ecosystem services tools. Droom’s services have been a revelation in the automobile transaction domain and have enabled thousands of users to own their dream vehicle at a price that brings a big smile on their faces. Bittuji for us is our quintessential user, and like in the campaign, through Droom’s ecosystem services, we want to ensure that every user gets the key to their dream wheels.”

The campaign was created by the Delhi branch of Contract Advertising. Elaborating on the vision of the campaign, Mayur Hola, EVP and executive creative director, Contract Delhi, said, “The purpose of this project is to demonstrate the various ecosystem services Droom offers to buyers and sellers of second hand vehicles. We have positioned Droom as an enabler of automobile dreams. It could be a car that you saw in a movie when you were all of 8 years old or your first bike or a second car for your daughter to go to work in… Droom via its services makes all of this a breeze. So Bittuji the dreamer was born for this ‘demo exercise’. We are really proud of the end product which is super entertaining and indeed demonstrates the services of Droom perfectly.”

A midnight in April, Sandeep Aggarwal was at his home in Gurgaon, lying on a couch. Four hours later, he was chilling in the Maldives. For an entrepreneur who has taken to the Internet with his two popular websites, these indulgences are all in a day’s work. So, sometimes, Sandeep takes his best mate on a vacation to play golf overseas. Or sits in the lap of luxury in his brand new 9,000 sq ft penthouse, whose large chambers stock vintage from Napa Valley, a swanky home theatre with a cutting edge projector system and sound engineering. The founder and CEO of Droom and co-founder of a shopping site has diverse passions to help him stay cool-headed under the demanding hat of an entrepreneur.

Impromptu backpacking, music, sports and drinks, this biz honcho’s schedule packs in a whole lot of fun after the hardwork. With 15 years in San Francisco under his belt, his affinity to wine and vineyards only evolved and matured into a full-fledged hobby. “Napa Valley is one of the largest producers of wine. My fascination for wine started in 2001, the first time I visited Napa Valley. People there are so fond of wine. I got to watch how wine was produced, fermented, the different types of grapes, why one wine differs from another, how to shake the glass and take in the bouquet, and so much more. I have a huge collection of single malt scotch and wine. My new penthouse has a large bar, and a dual zone large wine chiller. To keep so much of liquor, I need a separate license from the government,” he smiles wryly.

A sportsman since childhood, Chandigarh-born Aggarwal grew up playing cricket and badminton. To pursue an MBA in strategy, he went all the way to the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis — and that is when he realised much to his chagrin that the bat and ball games he was used to back home were not a fad in Europe. Inside the squash courts at the university, he mastered Squash. Later, Golf also became a passion.

“In the 12 years of golf, from 2001 to 2013, my game was at best average or below average. I struggled a lot. Golf is a game where you compete with yourself. In 2014, when I was between my two ventures in San Francisco, I hired a PGA rank holder, and spent four to six hours per day playing. I got damn crazy about the sport and my golf improved substantially,” he explains.

The sudden tours are Aggarwal’s quick escape from the maddening hours at work — 17 to 19 hours a day. “If I do not go on a tour, I’d die. When I feel burnt out, I disappear from office for two-three days,” he says, adding about his love of music, “In San Francisco, we hosted a New Year party with 60-100 guests. I was the informal DJ, playing non-stop music for eight to 10 hours — a mix of Hindi, English, Bhangra, Punjabi, etc. I am passionate about music and have a collection ranging from the very lightest Bluetooth to heavy high-end musical instruments,” he explains.

'My First Job' was:

Technically, my first job was at Kotak Mahindra, Mumbai in 1995. I was pursuing my masters at that point of time and simultaneously, did an internship in Kotak Mahindra, Mumbai, Nariman Point. I was very nervous and excited as it was my first experience of a big city like Mumbai. I was surrounded by talented and intelligent people graduating from the top schools with the highest honors. I learnt a lot from them, made many good friends, and spent an exciting few years there.

Things I learnt:

Of the many lessons that I have learnt is that, founders need to be strongly motivated by a cause, as opposed to those driven by quick money, have the vision to identify an addressable opportunity and the clarity of purpose for optimum thematic leverage. Another management lesson that has always worked for me is make what you can sell v/s sell what you can make.

Skills I Acquired:

The basic skill that I learnt was how to conduct myself in a professional environment. Coming from an academic institution, you are bursting with ideas and energy but the grind of the professional workspace allows you to channelise the energy in the right direction. I also understood the meaning and developed the skill of networking and relationship management, two very important virtues to have in the modern business ecosphere. Furthermore, the stint also gave me ample exposure to strengthen my strategic thinking, conceptualisation and analytical skills.

My manager's teaching:

I was very fortunate to work in a department of Kotak Mahindra where the managers taught me a lot. They were very straightforward in their opinions and placed a lot of emphasis on hard work, energy, passion and acquired merit, which are values that I still cherish and look for in a colleague.

Turning point in my career:

Well my life has been a series of learning curves with a lot of turning points. Post my B.Com, I followed in the footsteps of my elder brother who was pursuing chartered accountancy. I realised soon however that I did not like it and even after doing an articleship and went for masters in Indore. After Indore, I again came back to my home city and worked in investment banking for a while. Then at an important juncture in my life, I realised I wanted to be in USA, so I went there for my MBA and worked there with two different companies. Post that I decided to join Wallstreet, where I spent the next eight years of my life as one of the best internet analysts out there. I then decided to pursue my entrepreneurial journey and founded ShopClues in my home in California. From ShopClues, I moved on to my next project Droom, which occupies the most of my time and efforts nowadays. So, I have witnessed at least 6 or 8 critical points in my career and each one made me more mature, well-equipped to handle pressure, and much more pragmatic. All of them prepared me so that I could experience lot of new challenges.

My most crucial step/assignment:

I treated every new assignment as extremely crucial as they were significantly different from the previous one. I had to start from the scratch and be completely attentive towards the needs and demands of the current task. However, if I had to choose one, I would say moving on from ShopClues both physically and emotionally after investing in it so much was a crucial step. Furthermore, I had to focus on Droom, without looking back and being still attached to ShopClues, which I believe was arguably the most difficult situation I faced in my career.

My Advice:

My advice to budding entrepreneurs or in general youngsters will be to follow their passion and what you will enjoy doing day in and day out. If you care about what you do, then you will definitely enjoy the experience every day. You know, if you love what you do, it's no longer a job and so I would say that biggest advise I can give anyone is follow your passion and dreams. I might have different ventures to show for my accolades, but fundamentally I am a tech entrepreneur and I enjoy being that immensely.

Where I see myself 5 years from here:

I established ShopClues in 2011, Droom in 2014 and 5 years from now, I might be investing or incepting something else. All of them will definitely come under the purview and ambit of my being a tech entrepreneur, which is what I look forward to being.

“The firm is run by people who made the first angel investment in their personal capacities in both Droom and ShopClues. I’ve known them for the past ten years now,” Aggarwal said.

Lionbird Ventures was founded by Chaim Friedman, who co-founded laboratory informatics company Starlims and sold it to Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories.

Aggarwal also added that he would be investing as a limited partner in a couple of more venture capital firms in the coming months.

It could not be immediately ascertained if this was the first close of the fund and whether the fund has made any investments. Email queries sent to Friedman did not elicit a response at the time of writing this report.

Aggarwal established ShopClues in 2011 and later launched Droom in 2014 and has been a startup investor since 2003. In 2016, he invested $500,000 in seven early-stage firms in India and overseas such as Dekoruma, Wydr, Shopsity, Data Guise, Give Club, Duriana and Curo Healthcare. Besides India, Aggarwal plans to look at Southeast Asia for startup investments.

He has also set up his family office, called Digital Route, to make all his future investments in early-stage ventures. The investments are made through his personal wealth, which he earned from his career abroad as an investment professional.

“The market had been very precarious last year, so I spent less time making angel investments. But we are still on track to spending $3 million in a dozen companies in the next year as the market improves,” Aggarwal said.

In an earlier interaction with VCCircle, Aggarwal said that he would be investing in consumer Internet companies with a focus on healthcare, retail and fintech besides enterprise tech and data science.

Many leading Indian tech startup founders such as Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl, Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, InMobi’s Naveen Tewari and FreeCharge’s Kunal Shah have been prolific angel investors backing and mentoring dozens of startups besides running their own ventures.

DRIVING ENTREPRENEURSHIP WITH REALITY TV

Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO of Droom.in, makes his first reality TV appearance on MTV’s Dropout Pvt Ltd. Droom.in is the title sponsor of the show, aimed at identifying future entrepreneurs and enabling them to kick-start their business journey. As one of the mentors on the show, Aggarwal talks about his passion for entrepreneurship and India being on the brink of an entrepreneurial revolution.

The Reality TV Experience

This show has been a different and new experience. I have been lucky to have my cake and eat it too! I am passionate about entrepreneurism and this country is going through an entrepreneurial revolution with the booming start-up culture. The biggest take-away from the show has been meeting entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds who dared to challenge the status quo in their lives.

The Brand Connection

MTV had initially approached me to a mentor on the programme. However, the show’s youth focus was a perfect brand fit for Droom. Going forward, our sizable ad budge of Rs 225 crore will ensure that we have the scope to explore many more interesting partnerships like these. We have a lot of things in the pipeline that we will announce shortly!

WE WANT MNX TO GIVE TOUGH COMPETITION TO THE TOP THREE BRANDS IN ENGLISH MOVIE SPACE: VIVEK SRIVASTAVA

Times Network has rebranded its year-old English Movie Channel Movies Now 2 to MNX. Vivek Srivastava, Executive Vice President & Head Entertainment Cluster, Times Network tells us more

Rebranding MN2 to MNX

The channel has taken off well and we invested in content to make the proposition stronger. The positioning and communication from a content standpoint was working well but unfortunately the name was lending itself to the mother brand, Movies Now which is a mass brand. We want MNX to be new age, edgy. Therefore, we decided to give the channel its own identity and there’s no better time to do it than when the numbers are ramping up, and we have strong content to take this viewership forward.

The Numbers

From an ad sales perspective, English movies genre is around Rs 600-700 crore and in terms of TVTs, it is about 15,000- 16,000 TVTs. At this point, we have 30% of the viewership of the overall English entertainment space. Our aim would be to get to one third of the revenue pie as well.

MNX: One Year On

Since mid-February, we have consistently been above HBO and are among the top four channels. We would love to see MNX in the top slot. We want MNX to give tough competition to the top three brands - Star Movies and Sony Pix and also Movies Now.

INEXT PROMISES BETTER ROI WITH HINDIA CAMPAIGN

Dainik Jagran’s Inext is running a nationwide B2B umbrella campaign, Hindia that is generating much curiosity with its unique title reflecting its bi-lingual content. Siddharth Biswas, GM, Brand Development, Dainik Jagran Inext, tells us how the campaign showcases the paper’s unique positioning.

With 12 editions in cities such as Dehradun, Kanpur, Agra, Lucknow, Patna, Ranchi and Jamshedpur, Inext’s research has shown that the average literacy rate is 77% and the per capita income is almost Rs 2 lakh in these cities. Biswas explains, “Our newspaper is the only one with a 99% urban, upmarket readership that ensures a better ROI for advertisers. Most other newspapers have an upcountry-urban circulation split of roughly 60:40 respectively. At Inext we are not interested in creating a large circulation base but rather a more focused one. Our circulation is currently 5.5 lakh across the 12 target cities and we reach out to the target audience that has the purchasing power. We offer advertisers a focused connect with urban readers, something no other paper does.”

Biswas adds that Inext is amplifying the campaign with a mini-golf series for various agencies across India. “The entire Hindia campaign is aimed at driving awareness among media planners and decision makers, offering them insights into these markets, while providing them with a more focused approach.”

Sandeep Aggarwal, CEO and founder of Droom, a marketplace to buy and sell automobiles and related services also co-founded ShopClues in 2011.

After working as a financial analyst at a US based firm, he decided to pitch the idea for Shopclues to several investors but he faced dejection. Now he keeps a pocketbook, which gives a detailed plan about how his companies will work for next years. His new startup Droom has raised close to USD 65 million. Excerpts from a quick interview:

What are the lessons you learnt from facing 25 rejections from investors while starting your first company?

It is not easy. The lessons I learnt was that you have to believe in your conviction, it doesn’t matter if others believe it or not.
Entrepreneurship is never going to be straight line. Be ready for that.
Raising money is never going to be easy.
It doesn’t matter if someone believes in your conviction or not. You have to wear a salesman hat and convince someone to put money in you.

Here are my five important tips to aspiring entrepreneurs:

Be passionate about the idea: Do something for which you feel passionate and energetic. Don’t do something because you want to be your own boss or have a business.

Do it in time: If you don’t, then the regret of not doing it will be bigger than anything later.

Get enough capital: It doesn’t matter how lean operations you have, how much less capital you need but get sure you get enough capital for the business.

Think long term: Always start a business with a long term horizon. Don’t do something short-term or just to have a capital.

Hire a great team: Hire the team where you can have commitment, chemistry, and good character. They should be committed to the vision of the company and get along with you.

2. What traits you look for in your partners and cofounders in business?

I look for five things in my partner, may it be my team or my cofounder.

These are commitment, character, capability, craving and capacity.

India is going through renaissance of digital economy revolution. It is going through entrepreneurism.

People should dare to dropout (of jobs and colleges) to follow their dream.

What is your marketing mantra?

I think our marketing mantra comprises four factors. One is that we are highly obsessive about ROI. Second is that we spend money only when we can measure it. Third, we like performance-based marketing. As they say, what you cannot measure, you cannot control. The fourth one can be attributed to the component of virality.

Tell us about your performance-linked marketing approach?

Growing at the rate of 225%, we are right now the third or fourth largest ecommerce company in India. We are the largest auto-portal on 65% of all online transactions for automobile and the largest hyper-local marketplace. Our marketing spend per cent of gross revenue is probably the lowest for any ecommerce company in India. On an average, an ecommerce company spends 10–15% of their gross revenue on marketing whereas we are spending under 4.5% of our gross revenue for marketing. That’s the only possibility because for us, the most analytical department is not finance or research—it is marketing. The things we measure obsessively are the marketing spends and the returns we get out of that. We have always tried to link our marketing span with performance and results but our categories are such that you must build a larger market brand and that is why we are allocating a sizeable budget for TV, print, radio and outdoor. We are ROI-focused, data-driven and if we hadn’t spent the marketing budget so efficiently, I don’t think we would have received this much. You only make this much money if you spend the previous money very thoughtfully.

You said that you measure obsessively. What are the metrics that help you gauge the efficacy of your marketing activities?

We have a third-party company which gives an insight on brand recall and brand awareness. We measure Rupees in terms of the total traffic we receive, increase in total app download, likes, percentage increase in direct traffic and organic traffic. Then, we measure marketing spend as a percentage of GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) on whether it is the same as before or has gone higher.

What is your marketing focus?

Our marketing focus is core online shoppers.

What are your criteria for brand tie-ups and associations?

We look at a brand or company that we can associate with Droom, as a brand and that exudes vibrancy, energy and youthfulness. Another factor is if the brand is more cohesive with what we do for a living. Also, rather than a standard tie-up, we look for a brand that can cause a spill-over in terms of virality.

Any brand engagement activities in the pipeline?

As a part of our new campaign, you will see the brand in huge concentrated areas like shopping malls, college campuses and universities throughout India. You can expect a lot of activation. We will try to engage people with OBV, eco and history.

Here is a list of deals that happened in Indian Startup Ecosystem today. Read a brief description about all of them:

1. Online interior design company, Design Cafe has raised a multi-million-dollar round of funding led by Fireside Ventures

founded by Kanwaljit Singh, former managing director of Helion ventures. Other investors who participated in the round include Apurva Salarpuria, founder of Salarpuria Group of Companies, angel investor Sidharth Pansari and Sprout Capital, a micro venture capital fund by Bengaluru-based boutique investment banking firm. In the last 18 months, this is company’s second funding round.

The Bengaluru-based startup, cofounded by architects and designers Gita Ramanan and Shezaan Bhojani, offers an online customised design and decor solution to consumers. It plans to use the raised funds to expand to other cities, including Mumbai and Delhi.

2. Hyderabad-based automotive technology startup Smart Auto Systems has raised Rs 20 crore in Series-A round from Mitsui & Co, which is part of Japanese conglomerate Mitsui Group, according to documents filed with the Registrar of Companies (ROC).

The startup has been bootstrapped since its inception in 2015. This is the first infusion of external capital in the company that will be used to further build out its technology platform, and expand its geographical presence, a source close to the deal told ET.

3. Gati, one of India's largest express distribution and supply-chain companies, mid-market private equity firm Peepul Capital and supply-chain player TVS Logistics are in the fray to acquire Vulcan Express, the logistics arm of beleaguered online marketplace Snapdeal.

According to a report published by ET, a potential transaction could take place over the next 60 days. Snapdeal is expecting an amount of Rs 90-120 crore for this acquisition deal, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Flipkart, the country's largest e-commerce company, and global private equity major Warburg Pincus who is an investor in Gurgaon-based logistics company, Ecom Express, have also expressed interest to acquire Vulcan Express.

This also comes after Axis Bank, India's third-largest private sector bank, has emerged as one of the frontrunners to acquire FreeCharge the digital payments platform owned by Snapdeal, after Paytm and Mobikwik.

Last week, Snapdeal’s board has rejected an offer of roughly $800-900 million from larger rival Flipkart.

4. After closing its $20 million Series C round of funding last week, Droom, an online marketplace for used automobiles, is planning 2-3 acquisitions this year and will probably spend about $8-10 million. Droom will also expand into Indonesia this year. The company earlier planned foray into Southeast Asia, however the plan had been ‘delayed’ as the company had stayed focused on its operations in India.

“We stayed focused on India because if we capture India, then we can capture many other countries. After Diwali (this year), we will expand internationally and Indonesia will be the first country. After that, we will be expanding to Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore,” founder Sandeep Aggarwal said in an interaction with DealStreetAsia.

The series-C round of funding also saw participation from Droom's existing list of institutional backers, which includes venture capital firm Lightbox, Singapore-based investor Beenext, founded by former Beenos founder and chief executive Teruhide Sato, Beenos and Japanese incubator and venture capital firm Digital Garage.

However, according to two sources briefed on the matter, also joining the company's investor cap table is Success Finance Group, the financial arm of Hong Kong-listed Success Universe Group, which is principally engaged in travel and lottery businesses.

Additionally, about six family offices, whose names were not disclosed, and are spread across Hong Kong, China and Taiwan, have also invested in the round. According to the sources cited above, the latest round values the three-year-old company at $450-$500 million, a significant upside from its series-B valuation of $210-$240 million.

This, however, could not be independently verified by ET.

Both Sandeep Aggarwal, chief executive of Droom, and co-founder Rishab Malik, declined to disclose the specifics of the transaction, along with the names of the new investors, citing confidentiality agreements. Including the latest round of funding, Droom, which competes with the likes of Temasek and Warburg Pincus-backed CarTrade and Google Capital and Hillhouse Capital-backed CarDekho, has raised about $65 million in equity financing.

In February, CarTrade had raised $55 million in funding led by Temasek and an unnamed US-based family office.

Proceeds from the latest round will be used to further build up the Gurgaon and Singapore-based Droom's five business verticals, which includes algorithmic pricing engine Orange Book Value, doorstep auto inspection Eco, History, a repository of vehicle history, Droom Discovery a pre-buying research tool and Droom Credit, its auto financing vertical.

ET was the first to report in its edition dated November 21, 2016 that the company had begun discussions with potential investors to raise its next round. At the time, the company was looking to raise $30$50 million. “We raised $20 million, despite there being more capital available, as we wanted to dilute less equity. We still have over 80% of our series-B lying in the bank,“ Malik told ET.

With this infusion of funds, fifth round of funding by Droom, the company has raised closed to $65 million so far. The newly-raised capital will be leveraged to build on its tech platform and drive greater adoption of its ecosystem tools.

“Droom is the largest auto portal in India in terms of gross revenue, monthly traffic and number of auto dealers. We are also the largest auto vertical and the largest hyperlocal marketplace in e-commerce. Series C rounds typically accelerate the pace of growth for a business and help it establish its undisputed leadership in its sector and that’s exactly the case with us,” Droom Founder and CEO, Sandeep Aggarwal said,

“This fresh capital infusion into our war chest will once and for all give us an unchallenged competitive edge, not just in the online automobile space but in the e-commerce landscape at large,” he added.

Integrated Asset Management is a subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based private investment firm having interests in private debt, buyouts, venture capital, listed securities and real estate.

According to a company statement, the new capital will be used to build its tech platform and beef up its presence in the market, besides facilitating greater adoption of its ecosystem tools, including History, ECO, OBV and Credit.

“The fresh capital infusion into our war chest will once and for all give us an unchallenged competitive edge, not just in the online automobile space, but also in the e-commerce landscape at large,” said Droom’s founder Sandeep Aggarwal.

Since its launch in April 2014, Droom has raised $65 million of external funding. In July 2016, it had raised an undisclosed amount in a Series B round from venture capital fund Beenext, Japanese internet company Digital Garage, Lightbox and Beenos, besides others.

The company claims $554 million in annualised gross merchandise volume, growing at 350% year-on-year. It also claims to have over 159,000 auto dealers on its platform.

In the online used automobiles selling space, Droom competes with Truebil, Zoomo, CarDekho (which had acquired Gaadi.com), Carwale and CarTrade. Horizontal people-to-people platforms, such as OLX and Quikr, too, share the same space. According to Aggarwal, Droom has a 65% share of all transactions in the online used automobile market.

The company has also set aside $8-10 million for possible all-cash acquisitions, and is betting big on its credit services to achieve profitability. “Going ahead, Droom Credit will contribute higher than any other vertical in terms of revenue. Within two years, we would like to see about one-third of Droom as a fintech company. The vertical is in its second month now, and we already have more than one dozen NBFCs and banks working with us, generating more than 10,000 leads,” Aggarwal added.

Aggarwal had earlier launched online marketplace ShopClues, which was backed by Beenos. He has also been investing in other startups, such as mobile wholesale marketplace Wydr and Shopsity, which connects offline retailers to customers.

Founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal claims that Droom is the largest auto portal in India in terms of gross revenue, monthly traffic and number of auto dealers and also the largest auto vertical and hyperlocal marketplace in e-commerce.

“Series C rounds typically accelerate the pace of growth for a business and help it establish its undisputed leadership in its sector and that’s exactly the case with us. This fresh capital infusion into our war chest will once and for all give us an unchallenged competitive edge, not just in the online automobile space but in the e-commerce landscape at large,” he adds.

Jeffrey Yam, Integrated Asset Management said, “India is the next China as far as consumer internet is concerned. We are really impressed by Droom's ability to drive innovation, create scalable technology platforms, and capture the growth of the Indian automobile industry. Droom creates value for the industry by directly addressing and solving common pain points experienced by buyers and sellers.”

Founded by ShopClues cofounder Sandeep Aggarwal, Droom is India’s first online marketplace for buying and selling new and used automobiles. The company claims to have over 65% of the automobile transactions market share online.

As per the company, it is doing over $554 million in annualized GMV growing at the rate of 350% YoY. It has over 159,000 auto dealers across 500+ cities in India.

Last year, Droom raised nearly Rs 200 crore from Beenext and Digital Garage. Prior to that, it had raised seed funding of USD 1.5 million and USD 4 million in May and October 2014, respectively, followed by Series A round of Rs 100 crore in June 2015. Droom expects to clock Rs 175 crore in revenue by March 2018 and make profit by the middle of the next year. The company is also looking at listing on Nasdaq by the middle of 2019 and by then, Drooms GMV will touch about USD 2.5 billion, Aggarwal said.

GMV is a term used in online retailing to indicate the gross merchandise value of products sold through the marketplace over a certain period of time. It is often used as a reference by start-ups to showcase growth potential of the company and therefore, raise funds from investors.

However, investors are now more attentive towards factors like path to profitability and scalable business models rather than just GMV. PTI SR ARD

The round also saw participation from existing institutional investors including Lightbox Ventures, BEENEXT, Beenos. Apart from this, a number of prominent institutional investors and family offices from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan participated in the round.

This current round takes Droom’s total funding to $65 Mn. The last fund infusion came in June 2016, when the company raised undisclosed (reported to be around $30 Mn) funding in Series B.

Commenting on the investment Jeffrey Yam of Integrated Asset Management said, “India is the next China as far as consumer internet is concerned. We are really impressed by Droom’s ability to drive innovation, create scalable technology platforms, and capture the growth of the Indian automobile industry. Droom creates value for the industry by directly addressing and solving common pain points experienced by buyers and sellers.”

The company is planning for expansion in Southeast Asia. And the automobile portal is also looking to get registered on NASDAQ by 2019, said founder Sandeep Aggarwal in an interaction with the media in Delhi today.

With this latest round, the company’s total funding stands at around $65 million so far, according to a statement.

“India is the next China as far as consumer internet is concerned. We are really impressed by Droom’s ability to drive innovation, create scalable technology platforms, and capture the growth of the Indian automobile industry. Droom creates value for the industry by directly addressing and solving common pain points experienced by buyers and sellers,” said Jeffrey Yam, principal, investments at Integrated Asset Management.

“Series C rounds typically accelerate the pace of growth for a business and help it establish its undisputed leadership in its sector and that’s exactly the case with us. This fresh capital infusion into our war chest will once and for all give us an unchallenged competitive edge, not just in the online automobile space but in the e-commerce landscape at large,” said Droom Founder and CEO, Sandeep Aggarwal.

In June last year, Droom had announced raising undisclosed amount in its Series B round led by Singapore’s Beenext and Japanese incubator and Digital Garage.

Existing investors, Lightbox Ventures and Beenos, had also participated in the round along with new institutional investors from China and Japan.

The funds were to be used for its planned expansion into southeast Asia later this year apart from strengthening its platform and presence in India.

Commenting on new fundraise, Siddharth Talwar, co-founder & partner, Lightbox said, “the company’s focus on building core technology products to support its marketplace from its pricing engine Orange Book Value to History to ECO and now Credit, enables them to provide tremendous transparency to consumers throughout the country -which can never be duplicated by traditional dealers,”

Founded in April 2014, Droom is a marketplace for new and used automobiles and services competing with the likes of CarTrade and CarDekho.

Prior to the Series B round, which was reported to be around $30 million, Droom had raised $16 million in three rounds including two tranches of seed funding.

Hong Kong-based Integrated Asset Management (Asia) Ltd is a private investment office that principally invests across the capital structure. The investment ranges from private debt, buyouts, venture capital, listed securities and real estate.

A number of family offices from countries such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and China also participated in the investment round.

With this investment, the company has raised about USD 65 million so far within three years of its existence.

Started by former Shopclues CEO Sandeep Aggarwal in 2014, Droom provides an online marketplace for buying and selling new and used automobiles in three pricing formats—fixed Price, best offers and auctions.

"We will be profitable by first half of 2018. Our burn rate is less than 3.5 percent of the annual gross merchandise value," said Aggarwal in a press conference in the capital today.

The company claims to be currently doing USD 510 million in annualized GMV in transactions.

The company is also planning international expansion. "We'll be expanding in south-east Asia starting with Indonesia this year after Diwali," said Aggarwal.

Droom has raised $65 million so far and Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Droom said,"These funds will be used for further technological advancements and we are also looking for possible acquisitions in the automobile sectors. We have met 20 startups for possibly investing and acqui-hiring them."

Droom is largest auto portal in India in terms of gross revenue, monthly traffic and number of auto dealers. This round cements the company as one of the e-commerce platforms in India.

The company is planning to spend 225 crores towards marketing and expansion into other countries like Indonesia by third quarter of FY 2017-18.

Aggarwal also added,"We are aiming to be profitable by mid-2018. Our long term goal is to list on NASDAQ by mid-2019 when we hit the GMV of Rs. 1500 Crores."

Aggarwal said the company is aiming at a five-fold increase in business in one year to Rs 5,000-6,000 crore in annualised gross merchandise value. The company hopes to close the current fiscal with Rs 3,000 crore in annualised GMV, he said.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, the Gurgaon-based startup is backed by venture capital firm Lightbox, Singapore-based investor Beenext, Beenos and Japanese incubator and VC firm Digital Garage. It has so far raised more than Rs 300 crore in funds. Other competitors in the space include Google Capital and HillHouse-backed CarDekho, and Warburg Pincus and Tiger Global Management funded CarTrade.

Although the company gets most of its business from the Delhi-NCR region, over the last few months it has seen significant growth in transactions from cities including Bengaluru, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, Surat and Hyderabad.

"The funds will be used to strengthen the technology platform, tech-focussed acquisitions and strengthen Droom's brand portfolio,"

The round also saw participation from existing investors like Lightbox, Beenos and Beenext. The Gurgaon and Singapore-registered company has, till date, raised about $65 million across five funding rounds.

"The funds will be used to strengthen the technology platform, tech-focussed acquisitions and strengthen Droom's brand portfolio," said Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal. However, he declined to comment on the valuation of the company.

Last year, Droom raised nearly Rs 200 crore from Beenext and Digital Garage. Prior to that, it had raised Rs 100 crore Series A funding in June 2015 and seed funding of $1.5 million and $4 million in May and October 2014 respectively. Droom expects to clock Rs 175 crore in revenue by March 2018 and make profit by the middle of the next year.

The company has four different revenue streams - its core transaction platform, premium subscription services, advertising, and in-house developed enterprise products, such as algorithmic pricing engine Orange Book Value and auto inspection and verification service provider Eco.

Earlier this week, ET reported that Droom has earmarked Rs 225 crore to be spent on marketing of services like Orange Book Value, Droom Eco, vehicle history report History and Droom Credit over the next 12 months.

“In terms of traffic, these four tools now account for 50% of our total traffic which means they are doing very well in terms of user adoption. They have become extremely important for us to win this whole automobile market for a long-term horizon,“ Aggarwal said.

Droom is also looking at listing on Nasdaq by the middle of 2019, and plan to generate $2.5 billion GMV by that time, Aggarwal said.

The four new ecosystem tools include the pricing tool Orange Book Value, the inspection tool Droom Eco, vehicle history report History and Droom Credit for loans and financing and the company's marketing efforts will focus solely on these new services this year.

Droom's spend towards marketing as a means to drive new business comes even as investors have been pushing startups to curb cash burn to drive unit economics and profitability. But Aggarwal believes the 2.25 times higher advertising spend in these verticals as compared to last year's marketing budget of Rs 100 crore, would show definite results in the topline.

“In terms of traffic, these four tools now account for 50% of our total traffic which means they are doing very well in terms of user adoption. They have become extremely important for us to win this whole automobile market for a long-term horizon,“ he said. While there is scepticism over the prudence of this move, some analysts tracking the space, believe that the company's increased marketing spends may not actually be an exaggerated strategy.

“If a company has the resources, the best time to increase marketing spend is when others are tightening their belt.At such times marketing expenses are low, as is competition for the consumer's mindshare,“ said Devangshu Dutta, CEO of consultancy firm Third Eyesight.

The MRP on each of these helmets is Rs 750. However, using a code, customers are able to order them for Rs 9 on the company's website. "It is a part of our customer advocacy campaign," Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Droom told TOI. The company also brands the helmet with its logos — Droom or Orange Book Value.

As per the company, it managed to get orders for over 21,000 helmets (largely fulfilled) between January and March, and on April 18, the company received orders for another 26,000 of these. These orders are fulfilled by third-parties and the company has tied up with 5-6 different vendors for this across the country.

Asked about the rationale of the pricing, Aggarwal said it is a ‘psychological pricing’. He added that many people who bought the helmet at Rs 9 in January and February have already transacted on the company’s website to buy or sell second-hand two-wheelers.

The company, which gets about 200 deals a day now, aims to get to 450 transactions a day by the end of this year. Last year, the company said the gross value of automobiles transacted on its platform was worth Rs 2,600 crore.

Delhi-based second-hand automobile marketplace, Droom, has been selling ISI certified helmets for Rs 9 one day every month since January 2017. Droom intends to reap the benefits of this campaign later by cross-selling second-hand two-wheelers and four-wheelers to the customers.

The MRP on each of these helmets is Rs 750. However, using a code, customers are able to order them for Rs 9 on the company’s website. “It is a part of our customer advocacy campaign,” Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Droom told TOI. The company also brands the helmet with its logos — Droom or Orange Book Value.

As per the company, it managed to get orders for over 21,000 helmets (largely fulfilled) between January and March, and on April 18, the company received orders for another 26,000 of these. These orders are fulfilled by third-parties and the company has tied up with 5-6 different vendors for this across the country.

Asked about the rationale of the pricing, Aggarwal said it is a ‘psychological pricing’. He added that many people who bought the helmet at Rs 9 in January and February have already transacted on the company’s website to buy or sell second-hand two-wheelers.

The company, which gets about 200 deals a day now, aims to get to 450 transactions a day by the end of this year. Last year, the company said the gross value of automobiles transacted on its platform was worth Rs 2,600 crore.

Delhi-based second-hand automobile marketplace, Droom, has been selling ISI certified helmets for Rs 9 one day every month since January 2017. Droom intends to reap the benefits of this campaign later by cross-selling second-hand two-wheelers and four-wheelers to the customers.

The MRP on each of these helmets is Rs 750. However, using a code, customers are able to order them for Rs 9 on the company’s website. “It is a part of our customer advocacy campaign,” Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Droom told TOI. The company also brands the helmet with its logos — Droom or Orange Book Value.

As per the company, it managed to get orders for over 21,000 helmets (largely fulfilled) between January and March, and on April 18, the company received orders for another 26,000 of these. These orders are fulfilled by third-parties and the company has tied up with 5-6 different vendors for this across the country.

Asked about the rationale of the pricing, Aggarwal said it is a ‘psychological pricing’. He added that many people who bought the helmet at Rs 9 in January and February have already transacted on the company’s website to buy or sell second-hand two-wheelers.

The company, which gets about 200 deals a day now, aims to get to 450 transactions a day by the end of this year. Last year, the company said the gross value of automobiles transacted on its platform was worth Rs 2,600 crore.

‘Dropout’ here refers to the people who have not dropped out because of the pressures and succeeded in pursuing an alternative idea. The idea behind this show is to test their mettle in front of the panel of mentors.

Also, the show will consist of series of episodes and the team in the final will present to industrialists, investors and personalities like Ratan Tata, Anand Mahindra, Raghuram Rajan, Ronnie Screwala, Anil Ambani and Azim Premji. These stalwarts will select the one winning team which will have the potential to revolutionize the business of India.

Speaking about the show, Aggarwal, Founder, ShopClues & Droom, said, “I have always been extremely grateful to the entrepreneurs, innovators and my guides who helped me out in various capacities when I dropping out from normal life to become entrepreneur first time. During the show, I would try to pass on the trust and the good faith that was bestowed on me and provide whatever experience I have gained into enriching the decisions of the participants to fulfill their dreams. The show has been structured in such a way that it tests all the skills of the participants required to emerge as prospective entrepreneurs and business leaders. From food trucks to corporate events, the participants would need to show their all-round skills, resilience and tenacity apart from continuously working on their individual business ideas. I wish them all the best and look forward to see some great business ideas and interactions on the show soon!”

Call for entries from applicants across the country has started. The auditions for the show will be held in Mumbai in the month of May to select the final candidates who will then be divided into teams and judged on the parameters of Drive, Strength of Idea, Planning and Attitude.

Sandeep Aggarwal, who is known to be among the most prolific investors and entrepreneurs in the Indian e-commerce and entrepreneurial environment, is often considered a maverick when it comes to taking tough decisions, showing resilience and building scalable businesses. Once a globally top ranked Wall Street Internet analyst out of Silicon Valley, Sandeep gave up his comfortable job and a luxurious lifestyle to give fire to his entrepreneurial dreams and create India’s first managed marketplace-ShopClues-in 2011. Since then, in his various roles as an angel investor or mentor, he has always strived to extend a helping hand to entrepreneurs with great ideas, ‘grit in their teeth and fire in their belly.’ MTV Dropout is another such venture which aims to finds out India’s next prolific business ideas through the concept of a reality show.

Call for entries from applicants across the country has started. The auditions for the show will be held in Mumbai in the month of May to select the final candidates who will then be divided into teams and judged on the parameters of Drive, Strength of Idea, Planning and Attitude.

Commenting on the show, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder – ShopClues & Droom said, “I have always been extremely grateful to the entrepreneurs, innovators and my guides who helped me out in various capacities when I dropping out from normal life to become entrepreneur first time. During the show, I would try to pass on the trust and the good faith that was bestowed on me and provide whatever experience I have gained into enriching the decisions of the participants to fulfill their dreams. The show has been structured in such a way that it tests all the skills of the participants required to emerge as prospective entrepreneurs and business leaders. From food trucks to corporate events, the participants would need to show their all-round skills, resilience and tenacity apart from continuously working on their individual business ideas. I wish them all the best and look forward to see some great business ideas and interactions on the show soon!”

MTV Dropout will expand the narrow and negative connotation of the word ‘dropout’ to refer to people who have not accepted the pressures of the system but succeeded by pursuing an alternate, non-conventional idea with belief and pride. It invites entries from prospective entrepreneurs as well as ideas rejected in the VC stage to test their mettle in front of the experienced panel of mentors.

Droom MTV Dropout will consist a series of episodes and the teams in the final will present to globally-renowned industrialists, investors and iconic economic personalities such as Ratan Tata, Anand Mahindra, Raghuram Rajan, Ronnie Screwala, Anil Ambani and Azim Premji. These stalwarts will select the one winning team that has the potential to revolutionize the business exosphere of India and further helm its start-up journey to a world of endless possibilities!

Sandeep Aggarwal, who is known to be among the most prolific investors and entrepreneurs in the Indian e-commerce and entrepreneurial environment, is often considered a maverick when it comes to taking tough decisions, showing resilience and building scalable businesses. Once a globally top ranked Wall Street Internet analyst out of Silicon Valley, Sandeep gave up his comfortable job and a luxurious lifestyle to give fire to his entrepreneurial dreams and create India’s first managed marketplace-ShopClues-in 2011. Since then, in his various roles as an angel investor or mentor, he has always strived to extend a helping hand to entrepreneurs with great ideas, ‘grit in their teeth and fire in their belly.’ MTV Dropout is another such venture which aims to finds out India’s next prolific business ideas through the concept of a reality show.

Call for entries from applicants across the country has started. The auditions for the show will be held in Mumbai in the month of May to select the final candidates who will then be divided into teams and judged on the parameters of Drive, Strength of Idea, Planning and Attitude.

Commenting on the show, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder – ShopClues & Droom said, “I have always been extremely grateful to the entrepreneurs, innovators and my guides who helped me out in various capacities when I dropping out from normal life to become entrepreneur first time. During the show, I would try to pass on the trust and the good faith that was bestowed on me and provide whatever experience I have gained into enriching the decisions of the participants to fulfill their dreams. The show has been structured in such a way that it tests all the skills of the participants required to emerge as prospective entrepreneurs and business leaders. From food trucks to corporate events, the participants would need to show their all-round skills, resilience and tenacity apart from continuously working on their individual business ideas. I wish them all the best and look forward to see some great business ideas and interactions on the show soon!”

MTV Dropout will expand the narrow and negative connotation of the word ‘dropout’ to refer to people who have not accepted the pressures of the system but succeeded by pursuing an alternate, non-conventional idea with belief and pride. It invites entries from prospective entrepreneurs as well as ideas rejected in the VC stage to test their mettle in front of the experienced panel of mentors.

Droom MTV Dropout will consist a series of episodes and the teams in the final will present to globally-renowned industrialists, investors and iconic economic personalities such as Ratan Tata, Anand Mahindra, Raghuram Rajan, Ronnie Screwala, Anil Ambani and Azim Premji. These stalwarts will select the one winning team that has the potential to revolutionize the business exosphere of India and further helm its start-up journey to a world of endless possibilities.

Sandeep Aggarwal, who is known to be a prolific investor/entrepreneur in the e-commerce and entrepreneurial environment, is often considered a maverick when it comes to taking tough decisions.

Once a globally top ranked Wall Street internet analyst out of Silicon Valley, Sandeep gave up his comfortable job and lifestyle to fire his entrepreneurial dreams and create ShopClues-in 2011.

"Since then, in his various roles as an angel investor or mentor, he has always strived to extend a helping hand to entrepreneurs with great ideas, 'grit in their teeth and fire in their belly.' MTV Dropout is another such venture which aims to finds out India's next prolific business ideas through the concept of a reality show," said the company in a statement.

Call for entries from applicants across the country has started. The auditions for the show will be held in Mumbai in the month of May to select the final candidates who will then be divided into teams and judged on the parameters of Drive, Strength of Idea, Planning and Attitude.

Commenting on the show, Aggarwal said, "I have always been extremely grateful to the entrepreneurs, innovators and my guides who helped me out in various capacities when I dropped out from normal life to become entrepreneur first time. During the show, I would try to pass on the trust and the good faith that was bestowed on me and provide whatever experience I have gained into enriching the decisions of the participants to fulfill their dreams. The show has been structured in such a way that it tests all the skills of the participants required to emerge as prospective entrepreneurs and business leaders. From food trucks to corporate events, the participants would need to show their all-round skills, resilience and tenacity apart from continuously working on their individual business ideas. I look forward to see some great business ideas and interactions on the show soon!"

MTV Dropout will expand the narrow and negative connotation of the word 'dropout' to refer to people who have not accepted the pressures of the system but succeeded by pursuing an alternate, non-conventional idea with belief and pride. It is inviting entries from prospective entrepreneurs as well as ideas rejected in the VC stage to test their mettle in front of the experienced panel of mentors.

Droom MTV Dropout will consist of a series of episodes and the teams in the final will present to globally-renowned industrialists, investors and iconic economic personalities such as Ratan Tata, Anand Mahindra, Raghuram Rajan, Ronnie Screwala, Anil Ambani and Azim Premji.

These stalwarts will select the one winning team that has the potential to revolutionise the business exosphere of India and further helm its start-up journey to a world of endless possibilities.

Also, independent of the category, Droom is now the fifth largest E-commerce company and the largest vertically focused E-Commerce company in India.

With presence in 500 cities, Droom is also India's largest hyperlocal marketplace independent of any category including food and grocery etc. While, the overall E-Commerce growth in India stands at around 20 percent year on year, Droom is growing at the rate of 350 percent year on year.

Droom remains on track to exit March 2018 with USD 1.2bn in GMV and full profitability.

In its part, Droom holds the distinguished honor of being the harbinger of a dedicated online automobile transaction platform concept in India, and a creator of various game-changing revolutionary digital technologies such as the Orange Book Value or OBV, a unique algorithmic pricing engine used to estimate a fair market value of used vehicles and History, India's first national repository for used vehicles with vital information such as registration certificate details and ownership history etc.

"We are super excited to receive such an over whelming response from both buyers and sellers for used automobiles in India. Buying and selling used automobiles India has been full of pain points, frictions and hassles. In nearly last three years, Droom has not only built India's most advanced marketplace but also built the entire ecosystem around used automobile with Orange Book Value, Eco, and History," said founder and CEO Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

Launch the Uber app during the campaign period and send a request for 'Superbikes.'

If the request gets accepted, an Uber MOTO will arrive at your doorstep and take you to the superbike station at Qutub Plaza.

There, glorious and legendary superbikes will be waiting for you, along with a rider, to take you on a 3km, 15 minute ride.

Post the ride, the Uber MOTO will drop you back to the drop location as per your wish. The ride is free of cost.

"At Droom, we wish to popularise the concept of superbiking with the #LoveSuperbikes campaign and who better to partner with than Uber. Previously, Droom and Uber have brought supercars and choppers on demand and we're certain that this one will provide an equally robust adrenaline rush to superbike lovers," said Rishab Malik, Co-Founder and VP - Business Development, Droom.

"This campaign has been initiated to enhance the spotlight on Uber MOTO fleet of two-wheelers for travel, which is a blessing specifically for people who frequently experience the monstrous traffic jams in Gurgaon and other areas in Delhi-NCR. With a MOTO, you can zip through the busy streets of Gurgaon or the narrow lanes of old Delhi and reach your destination in no time," added Uber spokesperson Prabhjeet Singh, General Manager, Uber-North India.

Users can avail only one ride per request with a specific duration of 15 minutes. The superbikes will not be, at any stage, given to the users to drive. Only one rider can ride pillion and he/she should be wearing laced shoes and no sandals or floaters.

The app has every information about Droom, including prevalent vacancies within the company, so that interested candidates can apply directly. The application provides great utility in terms of portraying Droom's culture and core values, specifically to interview candidates at Droom or at campuses.

Speaking on the same, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom, commented, “We are currently looking at hiring in big numbers. The HR app aims to provide more content to candidates sitting at Droom office while they have come to give an interview. It is a major move towards creating a paperless office. The added features are a bonus that will inform existing and potential candidates with every information that they need. We, as a company are growing at a blitzkrieg rate and this new initiative is a logical and strategic move in that direction.”

In order to reach this target, Droom has been aggressively running seller affiliation and community building programmes to increase its network base.

The company has dedicated teams of account managers and sellers on boarding team who train new sellers who comes on board. The unique Droom University provides a one stop solution to all seller related needs and queries including more than 100 hours of online tutorials and skill development programs for auto dealers. The company's seller support mechanism deals with all kinds of post sales queries and other related questions.

500 cities, one lakh auto dealers and with eyes on achieving 1,50,000 seller mark by the end of this year are big numbers, if we consider the overall automobile market in India and its online penetration. Best part is we achieved this in 13 months in free/organic efforts. In the course of time, we want to bring even more number of cities on our platform and this would not be possible without the highly scalable and robust technology platform that we have built combined with whole suite of automobile ecosystem services tools out of which many are becoming defacto standard such as OBV, History. Innovating and growing by adopting the best of practices lies at the very core of our DNA and we are confident of achieving more such milestones soon, said founder and CEO Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

Presently, Droom has its presence across 500 cities in India, with 160 cities in North India, 132 cities in West India, 130 cities in South India and remaining in rest if India, across all prominent states. The company also has an adequate presence in the Tier II and III cities and towns, across the country.

In order to achieve this ambitious target, Droom is aggressively running seller affiliation programmes to increase its network base. The company also has in its folds dedicated teams of sellers who trains new sellers who comes on board.
The one-of-a-kind Droom University provides a one stop solution to all seller related needs and queries. The company's seller support mechanism deals with all kinds of post sales queries and other related questions.
One lakh sellers, mark a watershed moment in our voyage to become the undisputed leader in the online automobile domain. I would like to thank everyone in the team who has helped us in achieving this significant landmark and our entire seller community for believing in us. Going forward we will continue to innovate and grow in order to serve customers and empower our sellers, in newer and better ways, said co-founder and VP Business Development, Droom, Rishab Malik.
We are a high-end technology backed marketplace platform with innovative proprietary tools such as Orange Book Value, Eco App, History, Full Circle Trust Score that are hugely beneficial for sellers on our platform, he added.
The company currently has sellers from 429 cities across India, registered on its platform with 85 percent hailing from Tier II cities. The portal boasts of a balanced ratio of four wheelers vs two wheeler automobile sellers. The journey to the milestone mark has been firm, often challenging, yet momentous.

Vehicles belonging to the Mint Vehicles category are used vehicles which are in pristine, almost brand-new condition.
It is always a desire of every young boy/girl to drive in one of those swanky cars that have cool number plates such as 007, 111 and 786. With its VIP Numbers category, Droom is catering to this need.
Any vehicle, new or used, can be fitted with a number plate of your choice. Added to that, Droom also provides its buyers a choice to buy vehicles based on whether the registration number is odd or even, according to their utility keeping Delhi/NCR's experiment with odd-even number plates.
Rishab Malik, cofounder and VP – business development, Droom, said: “Specific number plates, top-notch condition vehicles or buyers searching for odd or even numbered plates to suit their purpose, we have come across these not-so-common requests time and again. Thus we decided to provide such allied services which have become extremely popular with our buyers. These services, though subtle, end up making a huge impact on the buyers’ minds and often nudge people enough to repeat transactions.”
Apart from fancy number plates or flashy marques, there are those customers who like things vintage and/or rare. For these buyers, Droom has launched its Hard-To-Find category where one can choose to buy a rare model from a leading brand or pick up a vintage/retro car under the Old-is-Gold category, a listing full of yesteryears’ vehicles which were known for their delicate craftsmanship.

India's pioneering online automobile transactional marketplace Droom has given a boost to its allied services segment by signing up with some of the biggest service providers in the Road Side Assistance category, including Allianz Worldwide Partners. The move is expected to garner more traction and better customer experience for the online marketplace in this category.
This latest agreement assumes all the more importance as it was achieved after several meetings and intense negotiations. Along with this partnership, Droom has also signed up a number of regional sellers such as Road India (RSA-500 locations), Zaiuto and Gomgarage.
The partnerships have enabled Droom to cover 477 locations across the country where it can provide Road Side Assistance to its consumers, including the metropolitan cities of Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Pune.
This is a major development that will impact the current fabric of the online automotive industry. With RSA being provided by brands such as Allianz Worldwide and other regional providers, confidence of car buyers from Droom will definitely enhance, leading to greater brand support, said co-founder and VP Business Development Droom, Rishab Malik.
This agreement justifies and fulfills the brand valuation of all the service providers to the hilt. We are looking forward to earning huge success with this collaboration and further provide confidence in the buyers regarding the vehicles transacted by Droom, added Malik.
Droom currently has 12 partners in its RSA services provider channels and 10 partners providing Eco-inspector services. Droom's RSA services will be available in cities including Vijayawada, Varanasi, Warangal, West Sikkim, Iruvannamalai, Trivandrum, Tiruchy, Srinagar, Rohtak, Rewari, Nagaon, Meerut, Guwahati, Ferozepur, Coimbatore, Bellary and Amravati.
To avoid confusion due to the presence of multiple RSA service providers in a particular city, Droom, like a perfect marketplace, has given the customers complete freedom to choose a partner service provider without any bias or preference, thus empowering their buyers and bringing transparency in operations.

The move is expected to garner more traction and better customer experience for the online marketplace in this category, said Droom.
Along with this partnership, Droom has also signed up a number of regional sellers such as Road India (RSA-500 locations), Zaiuto and Gomgarage.
The partnerships have enabled Droom to cover 477 locations across the country where it can provide Road Side Assistance to its consumers, including the metropolitan cities of Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Pune.
Rishab Malik, CO –Founder and VP – Business Development, Droom said, "This is a major development that will impact the current fabric of the online automotive industry. With RSA being provided by brands such as Allianz Worldwide and other regional providers, confidence of car buyers from Droom will definitely enhance, leading to greater brand support."
"This agreement justifies and fulfills the brand valuation of all the service providers to the hilt. We are looking forward to earning huge success with this collaboration and further provide confidence in the buyers regarding the vehicles transacted by Droom.”
Droom currently has 12 partners in its RSA services provider channels and 10 partners providing Eco-inspector services. Droom’s RSA services will be available in cities including Vijayawada, Varanasi, Warangal, West Sikkim, Iruvannamalai, Trivandrum, Tiruchy, Srinagar, Rohtak, Rewari, Nagaon, Meerut, Guwahati, Ferozepur, Coimbatore, Bellary and Amravati.

"The new big business that we are focussing on is the financing for used cars in FY18," said Vinay Sanghi, CEO of CarTrade. The company launched auto finance as a service in October in partnership with banks and NBFCs to document and evaluate used cars to enable loans. "Auto finance will form 25% of our business by FY18," Sanghi said.
CarDekho is also busy building its used car business. "The new car business is our cash cow, where we are already profitable. But the growth engine for the future is used cars," said Amit Jain, cofounder at CarDekho. "I am investing in this business and I'm bleeding," he told ET.
The firm is also looking to build competencies in evaluation and financing for used cars.
Jain expects the used car business to grow almost 90% in the coming year even as the company gears up for an aggressive marketing campaign for the vertical despite rising losses.
Girnar Software, which owns and operates CarDekho and its subsidiaries, saw its losses swell more than three times year-on-year at Rs 144 crore in FY16. The company posted operational revenues of Rs 82.4 crore, 75% more than FY15.
Droom which has, till date, raised about $45 million from a host of investors, including VC firms Lightbox and Beenext, e-commerce operator Beenos, Japan's Digital Garage, Hong Kong-based investment company Integrated Asset Management and Axis Capital is also in talks with potential investors, for $30-50 million in its next round of funding, expected to close over the next few months.

The study, based on analysis of Droom's platform database to understand the consumer behavior on its portal, found that Swift was closely by Toyota Innova and Honda City. Swift topped the list for the second year in a row. Maruti Suzuki also scored over its competitors in terms of the overall body make.
In the bikes segment, Bajaj Pulsar emerged as the most popular vehicle, followed by Hero Passion Pro and Bajaj Discover, while Honda Active staked claim at the top of the scooter segment, beating the likes of Suzuki Access and Honda Aviator. The trends were identified from Droom's platform data corresponding to the 2015-16 period.

An analysis of its platform database further revealed that Toyota Innova and Honda City came next in line in terms of popularity among consumers.
In the bikes segment, Bajaj Pulsar emerged as the most popular vehicle, followed by Hero Passion Pro and Bajaj Discover, while Honda Active staked its claim at the top of the scooter segment, beating the likes of Suzuki Access and Honda Aviator.
The trends were identified from Droom's platform data corresponding to the 2015-16 period.
According to the report, 59% of queries and online sales closed by Droom comprised two-wheelers (41% bikes, 26% scooters). Cars accounted for 38% of total sales, whereas the rest was occupied by superbikes and supercars. Bikes on the platform were bought at an average price of Rs 43,360, while cars sold at an average price of Rs 5,76,969.
Somewhat surprisingly, petrol and CNG cars saw a dip in sales from 59% to 52% and 7% to 4% respectively from 2015 to 2016. Diesel vehicles, on the other hand, reported an increase in sales from 34% to 44%.
Hatchbacks also reported a drop in sales from 43% to 40%, while Sedan and SUVs almost remained at par to the previous year's numbers. MUVs reported a slight increase from 6% to 9%. The average time span of resold used automobiles was 5 years.
Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO Droom said, "While Indian brands and tie-ups such as Maruti SuzukiBSE -0.63 % and Hero emerged as the most-trusted brands, foreign manufacturers like Hyundai and Honda are fast catching up".
While Harley Davidson and KTM featured amongst the most popular superbikes with KTM Duke bagging the top spot, BMW and Audi shared the distinction of being the most in-demand supercars. Audi A4 again emerged as the most loved car for Delhi's rich and famous.

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 details

The 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.

Only those couples who have their weddings before the 30th of April are eligible to participate in this contest. Whereas nominations are open till the end of February, the microsite will be launched on the 10th of February, on the occasion of Valentine’s Day.
In a further boost to the mood of love brewing in the air, Droom has also announced a mini-version of the campaign for those having their wedding on the 14th of February. The process remaining the same, couples would need to submit their entries by the evening of the 12th of February, which will then be judged and reviewed. The results will be declared on midnight of the 13th of February, and winners will have a supercar at their beck and call during their baraat/vidaai!
Commenting on the campaign, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom said, “Supercars have always been an object of great fantasy, even more so today with their portrayal in movies and other shows. We decided to initiate the SuperBaraat campaign to celebrate this season of love, and gift a lucky couple an experience which they will never forget. Furthermore, the interesting combination of a conventional Indian baraat/vidaai with a flashy supercar is something even the attendees at the wedding will marvel at.”
The SuperBaraat campaign will begin on the 10th of February and hopes to get a huge response from love-struck couples vying for an experience of a lifetime. Whereas nominations are open till the end of February, Droom is already looking towards enabling the first SuperBaraat this Valentine’s Day.
Campaigns such as SuperBaraat transform weddings, which already are special occasions, into memories that resonates for a long time after the ceremonies are over.

Their meeting began at 6 pm and went on till midnight until they were asked to leave the restaurant. They shifted to a Holiday Inn close by where the conversation continued well into the wee hours of the morning. Teruhide listened intently to Sandeep’s narrative about how he wanted to build a digital marketplace for pre-owned vehicles in India with a mobile-first strategy. In the end, Teruhide said, “You asked for $150,000 — I am ready to put in a million.”

Sandeep, who had spent the previous week preparing the business plan for Droom, was excited that it had been validated. The following week he met Itchak Friedman, Chaim Friedman, and Jonathan Friedman, investors from Lionbird Ventures which had invested in ShopClues. He managed to convince these investors as well, who agreed to put in $1,000,000. Says Sandeep,

With $2 million in Droom’s account, Sandeep began to expand its operations in July 2014. The two deals came as a morale booster for Sandeep who had to face the ignominy of getting arrested in the US in 2013 on insider trading charges; he was accused of leaking trade-related information when he worked as an analyst at an investment bank in San Francisco in 2011. While the case is still in court, Sandeep believes the arrest had an impact on him and that the only catharsis was in starting another company and reassuring himself that his ideas would still be able to raise money in the market.

So why did Droom's investors bet on this market? A report by the Indian Blue Book and Mahindra First Choice puts the size of the pre-owned car market in India at 3.3 million units per year. However, despite there being around 30,000 dealers just handling pre-owned cars, only 12 percent is organised.

The corresponding numbers for the two-wheeler market are five times the car market. Sandeep believes the combined size of the pre-owned vehicle market is worth over $100 billion. Even if the market size were to be $25 billion as per conservative estimates, it is worth going after, says Sandeep.

According to the Indian Blue Book, the market is 35 percent semi-organised and 19 percent unorganised, while consumer-to-consumer transactions make up 34 percent of the pie. Droom’s intentions were to get the semi-organised and unorganised into the basket. “Every company says it is going after 100 million Indians or more, but we first want 10 million loyal consumers,” Sandeep says.

Droom Today

Fast forward to 2017 and almost three years into the business, the company claims to have achieved a GMV run rate of Rs 1,500 crore. In its RoC filings, the company’s turnover is shown as Rs 17.2 crore in 2015–2016, up from Rs 9.2 crore in 2014–15. Its employee cost has gone up from Rs 9 crore to Rs 66 crore, with 220 people at present. The company’s current losses stand at Rs 14 crore.

The company claims it has one lakh businesses on its platform currently with 90 percent of its revenue coming from B2C (business-to-consumer) services and the rest from consumer-to-consumer services. “We are keeping our costs low,” says Sandeep, adding that of the money raised, he has spent less than 4.5 percent on marketing and that he would rather spend on building a tech and data sciences team. Says Sandeep

In an interview with Techcircle, Aggarwal says the company saw strong growth in 2016 and will continue the momentum into 2017, ending the current calendar year with Rs 4,500-5,000 crore in annualised gross merchandise value (GMV) and turning profitable latest by February 2018. But Droom remains a frugal company, says Aggarwal, and it will raise the next round only to make sure that capital is not the reason why it can’t own 50-80% of the market. Excerpts:

What are Droom’s current offerings?
Droom is an online marketplace that acts as an enabler. We offer auctions, fixed prices and best offers. In 2016, we launched three ecosystem services: Orange Book Value, which is the first and only auto pricing engine in India; History, the largest repository for used vehicles; and Droom Eco, a used vehicle inspection service.
As for features, we have a buyer protection plan, under which we can issue a refund if the user doesn’t like the vehicle after purchasing. We have ratings and reviews for buyers/sellers as well as vehicles, and these are arrived at using multiple parameters.

How are you competing with the offline market and other online players?
The existing players in the online space are either in the classifieds or the discovery space. But, with Droom, we became India’s first end-to-end transaction marketplace, providing tools that were missing in the ecosystem. When we started, people were thinking why the world needs another company but now it’s clear that we are creating a new category.

What is your business model?
Our main source of revenue is commission on vehicle sales on the platform. That is our bread and butter, and it accounts for 85-90% of our revenue.
Besides, some auto dealers want additional services, tools and features. For them, we have something called Pro-Seller premium subscription, for which they pay us Rs 15,000 per year; though small, it is pure profit. That makes up 5% of our total revenue.
With almost 12% of India’s advertising industry accounted for by the auto sector, we are also getting some ad revenue. Besides, we have started monetising Orange Book Value, which is a premium product.
How many listings do you have on your platform? What kind of transaction volumes are you seeing?
We have so far seen around 3.3 lakh listings, including both old and new vehicles. For the first two years, we were available only in the old vehicle category since we thought we were not going to add value in the new vehicle market. About 45 days back, we entered the new vehicle category. Today, we have the largest collection of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) on our platform.
As for transactions, in December 2016 we saw about 7,500 transactions on our platform, primarily for used vehicles.

What are your views on M&A in the space? Are you looking for acquisitions?
We will be looking for acquisitions in 2017 not for growth, net revenue or GMV, but for technology and acqui-hires. We will always look for cash acquisitions because we don’t want to dilute equity. If someone has a pricing algorithm, has aggregated automobile services using some kind of technology, or has a data warehousing team, we will be open for such acquisitions.
Our corporate development team has looked into 150 companies in the automobile ecosystem, and we have been in talks with 6-8 of them for the last three months. We may end up acquiring 2-3 companies in calendar year 2017. We have allocated Rs 30 crore-35 crore for the acquisitions.

Are you in talks to raise more funding?
We are a very frugal, data-driven company and we spend very little. We haven’t even started spending money from the Rs 200 crore that we raised last year. We have built this entire company from the first two seed rounds and the Series A round that was led by Lightbox Ventures. We will raise the next round only to make sure that capital is not the reason why we can’t own 50-80% of this market.
As for fresh funding, we have seen a lot of inbound interest in the last four months.

Do you have any plans for international expansion?
In 2017, we will look to expand internationally to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines. We actually wanted to expand internationally in the last quarter of 2016, but that got delayed. By April, we will be in Indonesia and, hopefully, in every 45 days, we will be in a new country.

Will you be looking at new verticals in the coming year?
We have an ecosystem of services, including warranty, roadside assistance, insurance, car care and retailing. One of the things we are planning to launch this year is Droom Credit, a consumer loan product with a marketplace approach. When it comes to auto loans, there is a lot of time and paperwork involved, and we want to fix that problem. We also expect to add 12-15 OEMs in calendar year 2017, apart from three-wheelers and commercial vehicles.

How do you see 2017 panning out for Droom?
In 2016, Droom proved how it is different from online classifieds and discovery platforms. I think we will end FY2016-17 with Rs 2,000-2,500 crore in annualised run-rate, and exit calendar year 2017 with Rs 4,500-5,000 crore in annualised GMV.
In terms of revenue, we will clock Rs 60-75 crore by March 2017 in annualised run-rate, and Rs 125-150 crore in net revenue by December 2017 in terms of annual run-rate. Also, between November 2017 and February 2018, we should be fully profitable.

"The company is targeting annualised GMV of INR 4,500-5,000 crore and net annual revenues of Rs 125-150 crore by December 2017, as it ramps up its operations to firmly consolidate its position as the best brand in the Indian online automobile market space," it said.
It added that orders placed through the platform grew from 8,232 units in 2015 to 49,974 units by the end of 2016.
"The transacted GMV on the platform also grew by 533 per cent, soaring from Rs 155 crore in 2015 to Rs 1,000 crore in 2016," it said.
The active seller base went up from 2,038 in 2015 to 15,619 in 2016.
"We aim to build upon this strong showing and continue driving massive growth for our platform through our value-driven, consumer-centric offerings," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal said.

With about two weeks to go for the Buget, all eyes are on the Arun Jaitley to see what he may unleash to save the sector. Some players in the auto industry hope for quick implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which has been pushed back to July 1, 2017 for now.
The industry also expects simplification of taxes and a reduction to drive up sales of new cars. They expect the government to push infrastructure investment even further.
Pravin Shah, President & Chief Executive (Automotive), Mahindra & Mahindra said, "Given the situation post November 8, we expect the Finance Minister to announce a well-defined , right and prudent budget with specific focus on infrastructure, manufacturing, taxation and provide rural stimuli to revive and boost consumer, business and investment confidence. In the short term the economy has been shaken and this budget will have to bring the economy back on growth track. Hence a bold and rational budget is what one can expect ."
He added, "Specific to the automotive industry, we do expect an announcement on the extension of incentives and infrastructure development support for electric vehicles.
Further, the political support which was so critical for GST has suddenly seemed to have waned in the aftermath of the demonetisation drive. Even in its present less-than-ideal form, the GST is a big game changer and the government must bring it back on top priority by giving adequate time and clarifications to the stakeholders so as not to cause disruption to business and economic activity at large."
Mehul Agrawal- Founder, resale car company Cars24 said there was too much disparity in used car taxation and policy across states and that simplification may reduce prices, fuel demand and drive better tax compliance.
"Simplification of taxes on used car across states in the form of GST. Presently, GST law is silent on the used cars segment. We wishe the rate for used cars should be lower than new cars, since the government would have already collected tax at the time of first point of sale (this is how it happens in VAT regime too) with lesser lifetime. Hence we believe the government should consider all these factors and maintain a parity while deciding the GST for used cars segment."
Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder, Droom said, "India must enhance various policies to ensure that capital is easily accessible to entrepreneurs. Having said that, government should not intervene when it comes to funds or bank loans. Money shall be coming to India and can be repatriated easier. Make foreign listing for any Indian company straightforward rather than the company having to incorporate itself in every country individually. Give R&D credit if someone is making innovative tech product."

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Scooters, bikes and cars from manufacturers such as Honda, Yamaha, Mahindra and Mahindra, Suzuki, Hero, Hyundai, Audi, and Toyota will be available at lower prices under Droom’s second anniversary sale.

In addition, Droom is also offering 50 percent discount on Roadside Service Assistance and 30 percent rebate on warranty.

Rishab Malik, CO – Founder and VP – Business Development, Droom said, "The second anniversary sale is our way of sharing the joy of success with our consumers. The deals and discounts on offer are sure to delight all our users, especially those who are waiting to own a pre-owned vehicle from a trusted platform."

Customers can avail up to Rs 10,000 discount on scooters and up to Rs 50,000 off on cars.

The INDIA 100 companies have demonstrated their ability to scale up, and succeeded in seizing opportunities throughout 2016. These are the startups that stayed in the news through the year and grew substantially.

Apart from the top 100 established startups in the ecosystem, every year, YourStory discovers some of the most promising and cutting edge tech startups in the country with our TechSparks and MobileSparks events.

Loans will be provided for up to 85 percent of the value of the car with a tenure of 1-5 years. Furthermore, loans on used cars can be availed on vehicles up to the age of 10 years at the end of the loan tenure.

Rishab Malik, Co-Founder and VP, Business Development, Droom said, "The recent collaboration is another step in our attempt to provide holistic facilities to our users and enhance the car-buying experience."

"Axis bank is globally recognised as one of the most reputed financing organisations with a successful track record of disbursing loans in a quick turn-around time. We hope that faster loan disbursal mechanism will provide customers with a buying experience that is hassle-free, secure and convenient."

"Axis Bank always endeavours to provide digital solutions to its customers, providing them enhanced customer experience and ease. This valued partnership with Droom is yet another step in our digital offerings," said Jagdeep Mallareddy, Head Retail Lending, Axis Bank.

Droom is also planning to use artificial intelligence (AI) to make it easier for users to find and compare the price of vehicles, thus making conversions faster on its site.

Acquisitions planned

Part of the funds will also be used to acquire start-ups working in the AI space too, said Sandeep Agarwal, founder and CEO of Droom.

The company, founded in 2014, has so far raised about $45 million from investors like Beenext (Singapore) and Japanese venture fund Digital Garage.

Agarwal, founder of e-commerce firm ShopClues, in which he is a major single shareholder, said that in a span of just two years Droom has been able to claim the position of the sixth largest online company as well as the largest marketplace for automobiles.

He claims that Droom has been able to beat competitors CarTrade and CarDekho in the automobile space, in terms of revenues and also the number of transactions. Agarwal told BusinessLine that the company is looking to clock a GMV (gross merchandise value) of Rs. 5,000 crore by the end of next year.

Its current GMV is Rs. 1,600 crore, of which Rs. 35 crore is the actual revenue of the company. Droom, which has all kind of vehicles from two-wheelers to helicopters listed on its website, has three revenue streams-automobile services, advertising, and auto-dealer/subscription model. "All the three segments (revenue) are doing well for us. This year, we expect the automobile services (10 per cent of the total revenue) and subscription model (15 per cent of revenue), to grow faster.

"I can see the subscription model to be at 30-35 per cent of the total earnings. It was at 5 per cent last year," Agarwal said, adding there are about 82,000 dealers on its site, of which about 12,000 are active users and pay about Rs. 15,000 per year as subscription.

C2C on the cards

The company, which so far had focussed on B2B business and B2C, is also looking to expand its services in the C2C space, where consumers can sell their vehicles directly to another. Players like Olx and Quikr already provide this service.

"Our competitors are either discovery or listing platforms, but we are the first transaction-based company and we are building data science and analytics to our advantage," Agarwal said. Talking about future services, Agarwal said the company would be using data science to improve its services.

For example, it has launched ‘History’, a feature from which any person can get data about a vehicle’s background, right from its make to whether the vehicle has ever met with an accident, to information related to vehicle’s insurance, loan history, theft history among others.

Droom claims to have over 83,000 B2C sellers; 25,000 products; 3,21,000 listings on its site; and Rs. 6,555 crore in listed gross merchandise value (GMV).

The company plans to become profitable latest by February 2018. It claims to have enabled 55,000 transactions so far.

In addition, the company is planning to come out with a quarterly report on the automobile industry and plans to sell the data to industry players and consumers, so that people can expedite their purchases and also get "genuine" as well as "accurate" reviews for a particular vehicle.

In a first for the country, online marketplace for pre-owned vehicles Droom has launched a national repository for used vehicles. Monickered 'History', it curates historical data to deliver in-depth information about a vehicle's background to address issues related to a vehicle's safety.

"The mark for used automobiles in India does not match up to those in the US and Western Europe because of lack of trust, owing to unavailability of verified information about a pre-owned vehicle," says founder & CEO of Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

"With History, we are trying to provide vital vehicle-related information to prospective buyers within minutes, fostering greater trust and transparency in this segment," he adds.

The process of generating the History report for a vehicle has been made simple. All users have to do is enter the vehicle's VIN or registration number and check for the availability of the report. If the vehicle report is available in Droom's database, users can make an online payment to get the report within half an hour.

With this, the company has vehicle information in over 18 unique data fields from 1000+ RTOs across the country. It currently has information about more than 19 crore private and commercial vehicles in its database.

"The used vehicle market in India often faces issues such as low transparency and a distinct lack of trust between buyers and sellers. We aim to plug this information gap with History," says Senior Director - Product and Technology at Droom, Somendra S. Rathore.

"Integrating disparate IT systems and producing our own data science and machine tools over the past nine months has been a colossal task, but we are confident that India will embrace a more digitally-driven economy," he adds.

Generated using Droom’s proprietary technology, the report will address issues related with a vehicle’s safety, trust, and value.

Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Droom, said, "Unlike USA and Western Europe, India is a low trust market, especially for used automobiles. Many aspects of a pre-owned vehicle, such as ownership history, title dispute, and vehicle-related issues, are non-reliable. This is largely due to the unavailability of verified information about a pre-owned vehicle. With History, we are making India’s largest information repository for used vehicles."

"By providing a report on vital vehicle-related information to a prospective buyer within minutes, we aim to foster greater trust and transparency in the used automobile segment."

Droom constantly collects and updates vehicle information in over 18 unique data fields from 1000+ RTOs across the country. History currently has information about more than 19 crore private and commercial vehicles such as two-wheelers, cars, taxi, trucks etc in its database, with real-time information of nearly 6 million vehicles from the Delhi-NCR region alone.

During the first phase of the launch, Droom will put up listings with valid RC numbers on its platform. The front-end will also be soon opened to users, giving them access to the most accurate, real-time information about used vehicles.

Somendra S Rathore, Senior Director, Product and Technology, Droom, added, "The used vehicle market in India often faces issues such as low transparency and a distinct lack of trust between buyers and sellers. With History, we aim to plug this information gap by making a standardised, central repository for used vehicle history."

"Integrating disparate IT systems and producing our own data science and machine tools over the past nine months has been a colossal task, but we’re confident that our hard work will pay off and help India embrace a more digitally-driven economy."

The process of generating the History report for a vehicle will be fairly simple. A user will have to do is enter the vehicle’s VIN or registration number and check for the availability of the report.

If the vehicle report is available in Droom’s database, users can make an online payment to get the report sent to their registered email address within half an hour. The information can then be leveraged by users to make better purchases, ensuring the security of their investment and offering them peace of mind while purchasing a used vehicle.

"History is an unbiased report which curates historical data available through various authorised data providers to deliver in-depth information about a vehicle's background.

"Generated using our proprietary technology, the report will address issues related with a vehicle's safety, trust, and value," Droom Founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told reporters here.

He added that unlike the US and Western Europe, India is a low trust market, especially for used automobiles.

"Many aspects of a pre-owned vehicle, such as ownership history, title dispute, and vehicle-related issues, are non-reliable. This is largely due to the unavailability of verified information about a pre-owned vehicle," he said.

With History, there will be an information repository for used vehicles and will help foster greater trust and transparency in the used automobile segment, he said.

History will have information about more than 19 crore private and commercial vehicles like cars, two-wheelers, taxi and trucks in its database with real-time information of nearly 6 million vehicles from the Delhi-NCR region alone.

During the first phase of the launch, Droom will put up listings with valid RC numbers on its platform. The front-end will also be soon opened to users, giving them access to the most accurate, real-time information about used vehicles.

Users will have to enter the vehicle's VIN or registration number and check for availability of the report. If the vehicle report is available in Droom's database, it will be sent to their registered email address.

"The information can then be leveraged by users to make better purchases, ensuring the security of their investment and offering them peace of mind while purchasing a used vehicle," he said.

Automobile marketplace and services platform Droom on Thursday unveiled a data repository of used vehicles in India called History. The product enables buyers and sellers to access historical information of a vehicle, derived from various sources and presented in a report-like format.

A user has to simply key-in the vehicle’s registration number and will get details such as the date of purchase, past accidents, change of ownership, service history, etc. Droom claims it has data for 190 million private and commercial vehicles currently in use.

While the service is currently free, Droom expects to put a fee on it in the future, said founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Sandeep Aggarwal.

The company is investing in services—having launched vehicle price calculator Orange Book Value and vehicle inspection services under Eco—and expects to monetize some of them going forward, Mint reported on 1 December.

"We are creating an ecosystem for services which go along with the transaction of a used vehicle. In the near future we will be launching something called Droom Credit, where an auto loan decision will be taken in 30 seconds completely digitized with the help of UID," said Aggarwal.

"History is an unbiased report which curates historical data available through various authorised data providers to deliver in-depth information about a vehicle's background.

"Generated using our proprietary technology, the report will address issues related with a vehicle's safety, trust, and value," Droom Founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told reporters here.

He added that unlike the US and Western Europe, India is a low trust market, especially for used automobiles.

"Many aspects of a pre-owned vehicle, such as ownership history, title dispute, and vehicle-related issues, are non-reliable. This is largely due to the unavailability of verified information about a pre-owned vehicle," he said.

With History, there will be an information repository for used vehicles and will help foster greater trust and transparency in the used automobile segment, he said.

History will have information about more than 19 crore private and commercial vehicles like cars, two-wheelers, taxi and trucks in its database with real-time information of nearly 6 million vehicles from the Delhi-NCR region alone.

During the first phase of the launch, Droom will put up listings with valid RC numbers on its platform. The front-end will also be soon opened to users, giving them access to the most accurate, real-time information about used vehicles.

Users will have to enter the vehicle's VIN or registration number and check for availability of the report. If the vehicle report is available in Droom's database, it will be sent to their registered email address.

"The information can then be leveraged by users to make better purchases, ensuring the security of their investment and offering them peace of mind while purchasing a used vehicle," he said.

"The market for used automobiles in India does not match up to those in the US and Western Europe because of lack of trust, owing to unavailability of verified information about a pre-owned vehicle," says founder & CEO of Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal. "With History, we are trying to provide vital vehicle-related information to prospective buyers within minutes, fostering greater trust and transparency in this segment," he adds.

The process of generating the History report for a vehicle has been made simple. All users have to do is enter the vehicle's VIN or registration number and check for the availability of the report. If the vehicle report is available in Droom's database, users can make an online payment to get the report within half an hour.

With this, the company has vehicle information in over 18 unique data fields from 1000+ RTOs across the country. It currently has information about more than 19 crore private and commercial vehicles in its database.

"The used vehicle market in India often faces issues such as low transparency and a distinct lack of trust between buyers and sellers. We aim to plug this information gap with History," says Senior Director - Product and Technology at Droom, Somendra S. Rathore. "Integrating disparate IT systems and producing our own data science and machine tools over the past nine months has been a colossal task, but we are confident that India will embrace a more digitally-driven economy," he adds.

The start-up claims it has a 50% market share in online vehicle sales. It offers a range of used as well as new cars, motorcycles, scooters and cycles on its platform and provides car rental services and a host of other services around vehicle loans and insurance, roadside assistance and tools to determine the fair value of a pre-owned automobile.

Droom expects net revenue—which it counts as the total revenue earned from sales commission—to increase from the current Rs35 crore to Rs150 crore by next December. This is led by a rise in sales of two-wheelers over the last few months in non-metropolitan markets.

The company charges 2% commission on the sale price of a two-wheeler and 1.5% of a four-wheeler. Commission revenue from four-wheelers are about 70% of Droom’s annual revenue in terms of gross merchandise value (GMV).

"We are seeing a massive adoption of our offering across different cities and expect this momentum to continue," said Aggarwal. Late last year, the company went on an acquisition spree, bringing sellers in tier-II and tier-III cities on to its platform. Droom claims it has over 200,000 sellers, both private and institutional, in as many as 416 cities.

"Proximity is a major influencing factor in a second-hand car deal. We have seen over 98% of all transactions happen in a 60-km radium," said Aggarwal, adding consumers were warming up to its service in cities like Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Surat, Jaipur and Vijayawada.

Droom competes with online classified portals OLX and Quikr and discovery platforms such as CarDekho.com and Carwale.com.

Droom had said it will achieve an annualized GMV of Rs3,000 crore by March and Rs5,000 crore by December next year, according to a Mint report in September. It currently sells around Rs1,600 crore worth of vehicles in a year.

The company is also seeing higher adoption of services by users and is planning to charge for some of its free services going forward.

"For every 40 products sold, we sell about 10 services. We expect this to double up by March and further up by December," said Aggarwal. The company plans to launch two more services in the near future: the first will provide a detailed history of used vehicles, including change in ownership and past accidents, and the second will help consumers get auto loans quick.

Started in 2014 by Aggarwal, who also founded e-commerce marketplace ShopClues, Droom has raised $45 million till date, of which about $25-35 million were raised from early-stage technology fund Beenext and Japan’s start-up investment and incubation firm Digital Garage in June this year.

The company has also announced that hitting this target will result in a proportional enhancement in net revenue from Rs. 60-75 crore to Rs. 125 crore-Rs. 150 crore.

Droom's four different revenue streams will help the company achieve its target. These include its core transactional platform of vehicle transactions, premium subscription charges, advertising and selling of products and services developed in-house, such as its highly popular algorithmic pricing engine Orange Book Value, auto inspection-verification service provider ECO and Quicksell. Moreover, Droom's consumer-to-consumer sales will be a major contributor to the increased revenue rather than business-to-consumer transactions going forward.

"Our services have generated healthy revenue, with more than 15 percent of our sellers having signed on for the subscription services and we expect these figures to increase to 40 percent by December 2017. By December 2017, we expect to achieve annualized gross sales of Rs. 4,500-5,000 crore, with a net revenue projected at about Rs. 125-150 crore. Interestingly, C2C has been a bright spot for us lately, and we see it as a significant contributor to our balance sheet," said Founder and CEO Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

Droom is also already in talks with potential investors to raise USD 50 million in its next round of funding, estimated to close early next year. It has already raised about USD 45 million across four rounds, from a clutch of investors, including venture capital firms Lightbox and Beenext, ecommerce operator Beenos, Japan's Digital Garage, Hong Kong-based investment company Integrated Asset Management, and Axis Capital. With next round of funding, the company also plans to expand South East Asian countries.

India's domestic automobile sector has grown immensely to emerge as the third largest in the world, valued at about USD 125 billion, with an expected jump of USD 75 billion by 2020. Droom's vision is to create, promote and increase share of the online segment in automobile transactions, which presently is at one percent of the overall figure. Expected to grow until eight percent over the next three to four years, Droom's strategic decisions are bound to help the organization scale the heights of success and for the sector to boom at large.

Indian online automobile transactional marketplace Droom is aiming to double its annualized sales and gross merchandise value from about Rs 1,500 crore to Rs 2,500-3,000 crore by March 2017 and Rs 5,000 crore by December 2017.

The company has also announced that hitting this target will result in a proportional enhancement in net revenue from Rs 60-75 crore to Rs 125 crore-Rs 150 crore.

Droom’s four different revenue streams will help the company achieve its target. These include its core transactional platform of vehicle transactions, premium subscription charges, advertising and selling of products and services developed in-house, informed the company.

Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Droom, said, "Our services have generated healthy revenue, with more than 15% of our sellers having signed on for the subscription services and we expect these figures to increase to 40% by December 2017. By December 2017, we expect to achieve annualized gross sales of Rs 4,500-5,000 crore, with a net revenue projected at about Rs 125-150 crore. Interestingly, C2C has been a bright spot for us lately, and we see it as a significant contributor to our balance sheet.

Droom is also already in talks with potential investors to raise $50 Million in its next round of funding, estimated to close early next year. It has already raised about $45 million across four rounds, from a clutch of investors. With next round of funding, the company also plans to expand South East Asian countries.

Brand: Droom Budget: Rs 12 crore Agency: Contract Advertising Buying second-hand goods, more so expensive possessions, involves a leap of faith in India, given the general feeling of suspicion towards and lack of trust in the seller. No wonder, traditionally the transaction would take place between people known to each other rather than perfect strangers. But how do companies operating in the nascent but rapidly growing online space solve this old riddle? A new advertising campaign comprising three TV commercials of online used car marketplace Droom tries to tackle ...

The Gurgaon and Singapore-registered company has, till date, raised about $45 million across four rounds, from a clutch of investors, including venture capital firms Lightbox and Beenext, ecommerce operator Beenos, Japan's Digital Garage, Hong Kong-based investment company Integrated Asset Management, and Axis Capital Given that the company already counts a number of prominent investors that are Chinese in origin, the early players that have thrown in their hats for the new round of equity financing, are also believed to be from the same region, including Hong Kong, or have deep links to the country's pool of investors, according to sources with direct knowledge of the developments.

Sandeep Aggarwal, chief executive of Droom, declined to comment when contacted by ET. The company competes with the likes of Warburg Pincus and Temasek-backed CarTrade and Google Capital and Hillhouse Capital-backed CarDekho, among others. The discussions also come at a time when there has been some uptick in Series B and above rounds, after a lethargic 12-15 months that saw investors put away their cheque books, while at the same time, urge portfolio companies to focus on unit economics and show paths to profitability.

In a conversation with ET earlier, Aggarwal, who had earlier cofounded online managed marketplace ShopClues, had said that Droom's gross annualised sales were about Rs 1,500 crore with the company targeting Rs 2,500-3,000 crore in GMV by the end of the fiscal ending March 2017.

"By December 2017, we expect to do annualised gross sales of Rs 4,500-Rs 5,000 crore, with December net revenue projected at about Rs 125 crore-Rs 150 crore," Aggarwal said. Net revenue for year ending March 2017, according to the CEO, is expected to be about Rs 60 crore-Rs 75 crore."C2C is now picking up for us, and we see it contributing a bit more to our balance sheet than B2C going forward. Apart from that our services is expected to grow faster than automobile sales," Aggarwal told ET.

The company has four different revenue streams -its core transaction platform, premium subscription services, advertising, and in-house developed enterprise products, such as algorithmic pricing engine Orange Book Value and auto inspection and verification service provider Eco. "About 15% of our sellers have signed on for the subscription services, and we expect this to go up to 40% by December 2017," Aggarwal added.

According to industry estimates, the country's domestic automobile sector, including services, is the third-largest in the world, valued at about $125 billion, and is expected to touch $250 billion by 2020. However, the online segment currently contributes less than 1% to the overall figures, which is expected to grow to 8% over the next three to four years.

Speaking on the launch, Sandeep Aggarwal, founder & CEO, Droom, said, "With no definitive pricing standards for pre-owned vehicles, buying and selling a used automobile in India was quite a big hassle earlier. This is what OBV, with its data science-driven approach, addresses. These ads highlight how OBV empowers consumers when making used vehicle transactions. By generating the fair market value of any used vehicle within 10 seconds, OBV ensures that no one can make a fool, or 'bakra', out of consumers, and helps in ending the debate on ‘used gaadi’ rates!"

The three videos feature an animated lion which explains to viewers how OBV works, what its value proposition is, and why users should choose OBV to get an unbiased, independent and data-driven price for pre-owned vehicles. With the videos, already having received a great viewer reception online, the TVC campaign will allow Droom to reach out to even more consumers and educate them on the benefits of OBV. The company is spending INR 25 crores on the marketing to reach users.

Team Contract Advertising said, "Buying or selling a used car is usually accompanied by a feeling of inadequacy as neither party is sure that they have got the best deal. It’s easy for the lesser informed party to get short-changed – or as the saying goes, made a ‘bakra’. OBV makes valuation of used cars so simple, quick and objective that a deal can be reached within seconds. So, nobody can make a ‘bakra’ out of you. That’s the simple idea behind this campaign."

Using OBV to determine the value of a vehicle is very simple. All users have to do is select their purpose (buying/selling), select vehicle category, and parameters (make, model, year, condition, trim, and km driven etc) in order to get an independent, unbiased and data-driven report on the fair value of any vehicle.

"I believe there is a massive opportunity for technological innovation in the Indian automobile space, as can be seen by the growth and the user traction witnessed by Droom since its launch. Through our unique, tech-centric approach, we have been addressing major market gaps and making the automobile buying and selling experience smoother and more convenient," said Co-Founder and VP Business Development Droom, Rishab Malik.

"Our dedicated focus on technology has made it possible for us to coordinate all of our operations from our headquarters. We are currently the only player in the e-commerce industry in hyperlocal market to have achieved such scale without having to deploy people in any other city," added Rishab.

In addition to establishing itself as the preferred online portal for buying and selling vehicles in major geographies, Droom's digital-first marketplace approach has also received great response from users in emerging markets from Tier I to tier III cities.

This has allowed the brand to rapidly expand its services in multiple cities through its extensive dealer network without having to establish a physical presence. Droom has successfully received orders from Ludhiana, Ahmedabad, Roorkee, Jaipur, Bhatinda, Thane, Chandigarh, Meerut, Nasik, Agra, Udaipur, Karnal to name a few.

Having launched its operations in January 2015, the exponential growth and scale since witnessed by Droom has firmly established it as a leading player in the Indian online automobile industry.

Droom currently has more than 78K+ B2C dealers selling 25K+ products to users through its platform. With 121K+ vehicle listings and GMV worth more than Rs. 6,555 crore already listed, Droom will be looking to build on its success by expanding into more geographies and markets, both India and abroad.

The idea behind the logo is that through our communications, we are passing a message that the price of used vehicle should be same for seller and buyer, reducing the negotiations between them and OBV provides that required pricing standard. The two dots in the middle of O in OBV signifies eyes and the two upper and lower halves of O signify the smiles of buyer and seller respectively. We have associated with orange color since start and we have maintained the same in the new logo for the energy and warmth it signifies. We have added blue color which signifies trust, peace, intelligence and loyalty to provide appeal to both sellers and buyers. The fonts and typeface has been chosen to be viewer friendly as well emit authority of being the used product pricing standard.

Speaking on the announcement, Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom, said, "With the demand of pre-owned vehicles in the country outstripping that of new vehicles, there was a pressing need for an objective pricing mechanism. Through its data science-based approach, Orange Book Value gives a fair market value of a used vehicle under 10 seconds. With the ‘Resale Ka MRP’ campaign, we wish to underline how this algorithmic engine does away with all the discrepancies that have plagued this segment so far with non - standard pricing. We are confident of the game-changing potential of OBV and have therefore decided to support it with a dedicated media blitz that will enable more and more consumers and auto dealers to leverage the 21st century tech and data science pricing tool."

Team Contract, the ad agency behind the concept of the OBV TVC, added, "The Diwali season is a time when every brand is trying to enter consumer’s mind space with gifting and home improvement ideas. But Diwali is also a time when friends get together and conversations take every direction. We decided to use an interaction between friends to showcase how opinions can often differ when it comes to agreeing on the value of a used car. Valuation of a used car is such a subjective and open discussion that there is hardly ever an easy agreement on it. This film beautifully captures one such conversation at a Diwali get together, and strongly underlines how a concept such as OBV can make this debate obsolete!"

Droom’s latest marketing initiative kicks off with the launch of an OBV Diwali video, which revolves around a Diwali-time discussion between friends about the value of a pre-owned car, as well as two animated ‘how-to’ videos about OBV. With the campaign already maintaining a sustained presence through social media platforms such as Facebook and Youtube, Droom will be following it up with a 360-degree campaign comprising TVCs, radio and outdoor media, and digital media.
Using OBV to determine the value of a vehicle is very simple. All users have to do is select their purpose (buying/selling), select vehicle category, and parameters (make, model, year, condition, trim, and km driven etc) in order to get an independent, unbiased and data-driven report on the fair value of any vehicle. This ease of usage and trust factor has driven great user traction, and has seen nearly 90 million pricing queries generated through OBV’s web and mobile platforms till date.

Q] Droom is planning to invest Rs 100 crore on its promotional campaign this year. Tell us more about your plans.

We have already started spending a part of the Rs 100 crore. We will spend around Rs 40 crore on our TVC, Rs 20 crore in various ATL-BTL activities and another Rs 40 crore on Digital, out of which two-thirds will be invested in Social Media and videos. We recently completed shooting our campaign for TV, Outdoor and Radio which will run for around 45 days. From November 1, we will launch our next set of ads for TV, Outdoor, Print and Radio. The third set of ads will be launched sometime in March. Through our campaigns, we aim to instill and increase the joy of owning pre-owned vehicles.

Q] You recently announced that Droom would also sell new cars. What advantage will Droom have over e-commerce players who are already in the field?

Most e-commerce players in the market today sell all kinds of products because their gross merchandise value (GMV) has dried up and they aren’t seeing growth. For example, an average order size of Shopclues is roughly Rs 1,900. For Flipkart and Snapdeal, my guess is that their average order size will be around Rs 3,500. So now, when you suddenly sell a motorcycle or car, your average selling price becomes Rs 75,000 or Rs 3 lakh. At a time when the GMV growth of these companies is dissipating, many start selling tyres, gold or even vehicles. However, we did not want to get into offering new vehicles initially, because we thought we wanted to go there when we could add some value. Currently, the value we are adding is – a 50% loan guarantee and a promotional campaign where there is 0% interest rate, a test drive at your doorstep and tie-ups with companies to give away freebies. We are also working on several innovations which we will soon announce. The moment of truth in buying and selling vehicles is trust, transparency and pricing, and that’s what we are communicating through our marketing messages.

Q] Since trust is a crucial factor, how are you convincing consumers to buy products from Droom?

We have built a lot of things which were not there in the Indian eco-system. For example, we created Orange Book Value, India’s first and only algorithmic pricing engine. Before this, valuing used vehicles was like pulling a number out of a hat. We spent 13 months and millions of dollars and have created an extremely advanced algorithmic pricing engine. Based on the make, model, year, kilometers done and condition of the vehicle, I can tell you the value of the vehicle. In the last eight months alone, we have seen 85 million pricing queries through the tool. We created another app called Eco. Any mechanic can download Eco, take an online exam and become an Eco-certified technician, following which he will start receiving orders from Droom. We have also launched a program called Full Circle Trust Score that uses data sciences to build trust.

Q] Droom offers products ranging from cycles to even yachts and private jets. What kind of reception has it got?

We offer vehicles like jets, yachts and even premium cars like a 1937 Austin. We have 1970s Lambretta scooters too, along with vintage and superbikes. Droom has been commercially available since January 2015. Today, we are actually doing Rs 1200 crore in analysed GMV. In my view, there is no other consumer Internet company in any category that has gone from 0 to Rs 1200 crore in gross revenue in 12 months. Secondly, our GDP is growing at the rate of 7%, new vehicles are growing at the rate of 9%, used vehicles are growing at the rate of 15%, e-commerce is growing at the rate of 30%-35%. And Droom, even at Rs 1200 crore, is growing at the rate of 700% year-on-year. So, we are growing 100 times better than the national average, and almost 50 times faster than the used vehicles market growth. Till September, we were only available in New Delhi but now we are present in 167 different cities. We have across 70,000 auto dealers who have used our platform and almost five million monthly visitors are coming to us through various apps.

Q] After Shopclues, how did Droom come about?

I would not have started Droom if India did not have Quikr, OLX, CarDekho, Carwale and CarTrade. Our country needed online classifieds as well as discovery platforms which are more of media play. We are the only transaction platform. In the US, first came the retail stores, followed by organized retail stores, catalogue and then e-commerce. It was a natural evolution. In India, there was no organized retail, no catalogue. To some extent, e-commerce is leapfrogging it. Almost 100% of the automobile business is unorganized. Online classifieds are present in over 150 categories, offering free listings. Discovery platforms are offering some content and lead generation. But the moment of truth in buying and selling used automobiles is again, trust and transparency in pricing. With Shopclues, I was a late entrant, being the 35th e-commerce company. In the first six months, we became the fourth largest. Here, we are No. 1. India is the third largest automobile market in the world, a $125 billion annual industry, and 0.3% of that is currently online. We own half of that. We almost created this category. The remaining half is enabled by the classifieds and discovery platforms. This industry will go from $125 billion to $250 billion by McKenzie estimates. Our estimate is that this 0.3% will become 8%. We are trying our best to own 50% if not 100% of that. Right now, we have no competition, and 3-4 years ahead of anyone in terms of technology and use of data science.

Q] What are the challenges for the category?

A lot of classifieds had advertised heavily and made a lot of misleading promises back in 2013-14. They had made promises which they were not capable of fulfilling. So we had to work hard when we started, but people started understanding our value proposition. Also, we need a lot of good talent which is not always easy to find. Thirdly, since we have grown very fast, we don’t have a lot of systems and processes in place and are always looking out for people who require little hand-holding and can start contributing from day one. We also want to build data which has been missing till now in the Indian eco-system. Currently, we are working on History which will give you the history of any vehicle. The problem is that currently all the data exists, but with different sources, and it is difficult to bring all of that under one roof. The government has a lot of data at its disposal. Had such data been available to us, it would be so much simpler to help buyers because they could have the complete history of the vehicle.

Q] Did a lot of learning from creating Shopclues go into creating Droom?

It’s almost like Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. When I started Shopclues, I hadn’t lived in the country for more than 15 years. Then, a lot of firsts happened to me - living in India after 15 years, becoming an entrepreneur, un-learning Silicon Valley and learning India’s ways. During Droom, I did not have to go through any of these. I already have a big network. When I started Shopclues, I gave Rs 5 lakh in cash to someone who ran away with the money without building my office. Hopefully, I will not make such mistakes again. When I created Shopclues, it was three years ahead of its time. When I started Droom, it was five years ahead of its time, and I could do that because I created Shopclues before. There is a higher use of data sciences and technology now. At Rs 1200 crore, we only have 176 people. When Shopclues was worth Rs 1200 crore, it had 900 people.

Q] What will your marketing strategy be for the next few years?

Our biggest marketing strategy is to increase the sense of pride and joy of owning a pre-owned vehicle because people are uncomfortable about using such vehicles. There is an anxiety about the vehicle’s condition too. Secondly, we have built Full Circle Test score and Eco and we will also be working on two other products that will be launched later in the year. Our marketing strategy is to increase awareness about these tools available both on and off Droom.

If you have a prolonged plan for a long drive in an Audi with your loved ones or you want to bring Royal Enfield classic to home this Diwali, this is the best time to fulfill your dream. Online automobile transactional marketplace Droom is out with promotions such as Diwali Wheel of Fortune, Karva Chauth Special and Bhaiya Dooj to woo customers with massive discounts. The buyers will get Audi at Rs 8,00,000, Royal Enfield classic at Rs 71, 200, Bajaj Pulsar at Rs 13,000, Honda Activa at Rs 12, 000, Hyundai i10 at Rs 1,40,000.

Droom is also offering an Android phone and shopping coupons from ShopClues on select purchases, while all vehicles bought under this offer will also come with an offer of 50% off on Roadside Services Assistance. Second big offer, the Diwali Wheel of Fortune, also promises a plethora of great deals, discounts and offers between October 26 and October 31, with customers availing discounts of up to INR 50,000 off on Cars, INR 20,000 off on Bikes, and INR 8000 off on scooters. Customers can also spin the Online Wheel of Fortune and get a chance to win spectacular gifts such as a Thailand trip, OnePlus 3 phone, an Air Safari (paragliding) package, branded 2 gm gold coin, helmets, car perfumes and a flat 50% off on Zoomcar rentals. All these promotions are available on pan-India basis in around 180 cities, with the best-selling models from the most renowned automobile houses in the world available during the month-long carnival of great discounts and attractive deals.

Carrying on the festive fervor further, Droom is offering a Karva Chauth Special under its Delhi Auto Fest between October 17 and October 19. Available in locations across North India, buyers can easily avail discounts of up to INR 40,000 on cars, INR 20,000 on bikes, and INR 8,000 on scooters. Furthermore, a romantic evening at a fine-dining restaurant is up for grabs with a GroupOn dining coupon worth INR 3000. One can also avail chopper rides during this day with best rentals listed on the website.

The offers however, do not end here. Following the conclusion of the Diwali Sale is the Bhaiya Dooj offer on November 1. A discount of maximum INR 11,000 is available pan-India on some of the best scooters from the most famous brands across the world.

Commenting on the announcement, Rishab Malik, Co-founder & VP – Business Development, said, "Droom is currently receiving 5,000 orders a month, which includes vehicle purchase and automobile-related services. With Dhanteras and other auspicious occasions just around the corner, we expect to drive consumer demand by 30-35 percent this month.

"We are spending Rs 100 crore on marketing this year, out which Rs 10 crore has been allocated for festive promotions," said Malik.

Droom Auto Sale kicks off with promotions such as Grand Auto Sale, Diwali Wheel of Fortune, Karva Chauth Special and Bhaiya Dooj launched to lure its customers with discounts. Grand Auto Sale will be live between 6 October and 11 October with discounts of up to Rs 50,000 on cars, Rs 20,000 on bikes and a maximum of Rs 8,000 on scooters.

Buying a used vehicle in India is a complex affair as the variables to be considered are considerably upgrading. You cannot just read basic facts about your next purchase, like kilometre mileage, year of purchase and service history, and jump to a conclusion of buying your next car. As we progress on to better systems of judging used items, cars too need to undergo immaculate observations to be passed as genuine and worthwhile purchases. Until now most companies that deal with chalking out vehicle history and its health have been somewhat vague with information. Enter Droom’s Orange Book Value.

Before you know about Droom and their hocus pocus Orange Book, you need to know a bit about Droom in case you don’t already know it. In the spring of 2014, Droom established itself as one of the largest marketplace to buy and sell automobiles and related services. You can purchase both old and now even new autos from Droom as their latest initiative. Its presence on both iOS and Android platforms on mobile gives it a very wide spread reach to a lot of audience. In fact their success is reflected by the fact that they have accumulated 74K+ B2C sellers displaying 25K+ products. Droom has scaled its Facebook likes to 2.5 Mil+ Likes which is commendable for a recent entrant. They were able to sell 30K used vehicles in a span of just 18 months growing by 700% year on year generating a swelling revenue of Rs 1200 crores.

Why buy new cars from Droom?

After you have made yourself a visible face in the market, it is time to venture into new horizons. Droom got popularity for used vehicle purchases, but now they facilitate new purchases as well. But then many others are doing it, what do you gain with Droom? The company has created a new category that will include a bank loan 50% of vehicle value pre-approved with door-step test drive. Onboard brands associated with Droom include Nissan, Chevrolet, Skoda, Mahindra and e-vehicles from Hero Electric. The leading light at Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal, who is the Founder and CEO expresses his joy and excitement on entering new car selling space and is hoping to bring order to an uncluttered segment of buying vehicles.

And yes, to keep it simple for you and not piling you up with a million papers to sign, the loan approval process has been streamlined and shortened by the company. In a bid to ensure buyers are not discouraged by loads of paperwork, Droom has tried to keep the loan approval process short. Application requisite for loan needs proof of Indian citizenship, birth/age proof for verification as an adult, 18 months of professional experience and a government recognised photo-id.

What is Orange Book Value?

The word fair is still in short supply in the Indian used car market. Droom has come up with a state-of-the-art algorithm based pricing engine to gauge fair market value of used cars, which is called Orange Book Value (OBV) in their terms. Sounds technical, and it is. This OBV a tool built based on Droom’s data and algorithm development that still has its patent pending. For the lay man, OBV is a pricing engine that checks the price of a vehicle based on smart algorithms and historic data which you may download and compare before a purchase. Using it is fairly simple too, simply select if you want to buy or sell, select category and narrow it down based on relevant parameters and generate an OBV report. This tool enhances and streamlines judging vehicle values in an uncluttered market. At least you get a valid datum point to begin with.

Droom is empowering customers to clearly observe minute details about their next used purchase, and also ease them buying a brand new one. The OBV database will start swelling up with time to provide even more concise data as more models and partners join in. It is a bold move by Droom and an applaud is in order for them to stack a chaotic shelf. With a bucket of nearly 50%of user traffic handled by Droom things look bright for the company.

Commenting on the announcement, Rishab Malik, co-founder and VP – business development, Droom, said, "Droom is currently receiving 5000 orders a month, which includes vehicle purchase and automobile-related services. With Dhanteras and other auspicious occasions just around the corner, we expect to drive consumer demand by 30-35% this month. We are spending Rs. 100 crore on marketing this year, out which Rs. 10 crore has been allocated for festive promotions. Our Droom assist team has been receiving about 1500 queries on a daily basis even before the sale kicked off, underlining the excitement Indian consumers have during the festive season and their trust in Droom’s diverse offerings."

He further added, "It is the season of festivals and we, at Droom, hope to make it as grand as possible for our users. With some outstanding deals and discounts, this month-long sale is aimed at contributing to the festive cheer all around. With the rise in disposable income, we have seen the demand for vehicles in every household is increasing. Consumers want more for less and increasingly prefer pre-owned vehicles over new vehicles, as it allows them to purchase a premium vehicle within the same price range. This is why we’ve launched our latest marketing campaign. With massive discounts and exciting deals, we are looking make this festive season extra special for Indian consumers by allowing them to purchase their preferred vehicles at the most affordable rates."

In a massive business achievement, the online automobile portal has been able to successfully clock a monthly gross merchandise value (GMV) of Rs 104 crore in a short span of 19 months.

One of the fastest growing web-based companies, Droom has already registered over Rs 1,200 crore in annualized GMV, with plans to achieve Rs 3,000 crore by March 2017 and estimating a colossal growth to the tune of Rs 5,000 crore by December 2017.

The achievement has become all more impressive as Droom has spent only 3.75 percent of the entire GMV value to run the entire organization including marketing. With their innovation engine running on an overdrive mode, Droom is expected to crunch some big numbers again within a span of five to six months.

"It feels extremely satisfying to achieve, and exceed the numerical goals we had set for ourselves. At a time when the auto industry has witnessed new vehicle sales improve by nine percent Y-O-Y and used-vehicle segment pick up by 15 percent Y-O-Y while the e-commerce companies register a growth rate of 35 percent Y-O-Y, Droom has been able to 700 percent Y-O-Y growth," said Founder and CEO Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

Droom first crossed the 100 crore barrier by generating a Rs 104 crore GMV, or USD 17.3 million, at a constant currency exchange rate of Rs 60/USD. Reporting a 30 percent month-on-month growth, it has also set a precedent of incurring low marketing costs by spending a mere 4.5 percent of the total allocation and yet achieving such enormous expansion figures.

"Buyers have an extensive range of special offers and discounts waiting for them. Since it is considered auspicious to buy metal around Dhanteras and Diwali, a lot of users opt for four-wheelers," said Rishab Malik, co-founder and vice-president, business development, Droom, an online marketplace for automobiles.

This time around demand is expected to be higher, as the monsoon has been generous and government employees have also got additional liquidity with the 7th Pay Commission payouts. "We have had a good season this year and the sale of four-wheelers has picked up from Ganesh Chathurthi onwards. The same movement will gain further momentum as the festivities continue," Malik added.

Is this a good time to buy?

You might be someone who is looking to buy your first car, or looking to upgrade to a better car, or planning a second car. For all of you, here’s a look at the deals and discounts this season, and some tips on buying your dream car.

Brands roll out some of their best offers at this time. "But there are also two other times of the year when consumers can get equally good offers: end of the calendar year and the period around April-May," said Dhruv Chopra, chief marketing officer, CarWale.com, an online marketplace for cars.

Many buyers tend to hold off buying towards the beginning of the calendar year, so as to get a better price when they sell it. In April and May, demand tends to dip as it is just after the financial year has closed and many buyers also feel they should not buy a car just before the monsoon. "In both the above seasons as well, brands roll out aggressive offers to entice buyers," Chopra said

What should you look out for

While discounts on many cars are high in the market, it is not right to expect a discount on best-selling new models. Another simple parameter is the waiting period for a car. If the car you are looking to buy has a waiting time of more than 4 weeks, it is unlikely to have a discount. Cars such as Maruti Suzuki’s Baleno, Tata’s Tiago and Renault’s Kwid are much in demand and customers have to wait for weeks to get deliveries. So, no discounts here (see table).

While discounts on many cars are high in the market, it is not right to expect a discount on best-selling new models. Another simple parameter is the waiting period for a car. If the car you are looking to buy has a waiting time of more than 4 weeks, it is unlikely to have a discount. Cars such as Maruti Suzuki’s Baleno, Tata’s Tiago and Renault’s Kwid are much in demand and customers have to wait for weeks to get deliveries. So, no discounts here (see table).

Apart from simple cash discounts, you can expect a host of other benefits. "Buyers should openly ask dealers for additional discounts in the form of insurance premium reduction, lower interest rates on loans, special financing schemes, exchange bonuses, loyalty bonuses and discounts on accessories," Chopra said. More schemes are likely to be introduced by manufacturers as the festive season progresses.

According to CarDekho.com, exchange bonus is currently available on 68% of the cars being sold in the market while loyalty discount is available on 8% of the models.

"Buyers can get the loyalty discount if a same-manufacturer car is available with any of their blood relatives,"said Umang Kumar, president, CarDekho.com. If you don’t qualify for loyalty discount, you can also negotiate with dealer to convert this discount to a cash discount.

Beware

While the auspiciousness factor is taken care of when you buy a car during this season, there is a possibility of having to pay a small premium for that. "As a car is purchased towards the end of the year, its resale value will be less, compared to one purchased in January (next year)," Kumar said. Moreover, as a large number of buyers opt for specific delivery dates, it could have an impact on the delivery experience as well.

So, study the market and make the most out of the deals available this season.

Shopclues is going for 10-day festive sales which will go on even after the biggies have closed theirs. ShopClues hopes to grow its festive season revenue by 100 per cent over Rs 1,500 crore it made during the season last year. ‘Almost 15-20 per cent of total market spend on Diwali is allocated for sellers’ initiatives like Big Business Boom, AdZone etc. We target to get Rs 200 crore of loan disbursed to our sellers during the season. We have tied up with over 40 logistics partners to give us four times per day load capacity. We have done 100 per cent end-to-end technology integration and automation with all partners whereby real-time tracking is available from the pickup to final delivery. Real-time load allocation to logistics partners basis algorithm data analysis of last three years trends around turnaround time, service levels and capacity of logistics partners,’ said Nitin Agarwal, AVP & Head of Marketing at ShopClues.

Droom, the automobile marketplace has day-specific offers. "We have offers in place for Gandhi Jayanti, promotional offers on scooters during Karva Chauth, and exciting deals on two-wheelers and four-wheelers around Dussehra and Diwali," said Rishab Malik, Co-founder and VP, business development, Droom.

Instead of one big sale, Craftsvilla will have two grand sales - ‘Craftsvilla Grand Festive Sale’ scheduled between October 1 and October 5, 2016 and the ‘Craftsvilla Grand Diwali Sale’ scheduled between October 12 and October 16.

As far as Myntra is concerned, it is participating in Flipkart’s Big Billion Day Sales. After being acquired by Flipkart, this is the second year in a row that it is becoming part of BBD and expects five times sales during the period. It will have discounts of up to 70 per cent on 2.5 lakh styles and designs, shoppers can prep up for the season’s biggest ever fashion sale.

ShopClues has partnered with CashCare Technology, a Mumbai-based fintech company for its zero cost EMI scheme that comes without any interest and processing fee. The zero cost EMI scheme will mean extra advantage and can be availed of on products priced at Rs 5,000 and above. The financing offer is valid on purchases made till November 15, with Rs 500 cashback on the 1st EMI payment. ShopClues also plans to run a pre-approved sale, where a consumer can get the loan approved instantly and schedule the purchase later as per his/her convenience during the festive season. With a credit limit of up to Rs 2 lakh, a customer can use CashCare to buy his/her favorite product from ShopClues and pay over the next few months instead of paying the full price upfront.

"We are going to deliver free services on certain products along with free accessories. For instance, we are giving away 250 helmets at Rs 9 each and are bundling auto loan and insurances with different types of promotions," said Rishab Malik of Droom.

eBay is highlighting the number of products it has in its shopping list. "When we found out that ebay has over 10 crore products, we knew it had to speak not just like a category leader, but as a conversation and thought leader. And eBay team really encouraged us and helped us find that voice. After an amazingly explorative and collaborative process we arrived at the idea - Things Don't Judge," said Hemant Shringy, executive creative director of the campaign.

This association will provide zero percent APR introductory offer that makes buying new vehicles on EMI extremely attractive.

To ease out the financial burden, Droom and CashCare have also decided to offer pre-approved loans to eligible buyers. Loans of up to 70 percent of the value of the vehicle are available with a loan period of three to 12 months.

"With the launch of the new vehicles category, we also decided to make the accessibility of the products greater. To this end we are pleased to associate with CashCare and help fulfill the dreams of many of our customers in a quicker and more efficient way," said Co-Founder and VP - Business Development Droom, Rishab Malik.

"Droom has emerged as a significant market innovator in the automobile buy/sell market. As a real-time finance provider, CashCare understands car buyers' needs for hassle-free and quick disbursal of loans," said CashCare Founder and CEO, Vikas Sekri.

To ease out the financial burden, Droom and CashCare have also decided to offer pre-approved loans to eligible buyers. Loans of up to 70% of the value of the vehicle are available with a loan period of 3-12 months. With these offerings, CashCare has provided a golden opportunity for buyers who are on the verge of purchasing their first vehicle but were being encumbered by financial constraints.

One of the biggest features of this collaboration and the introductory offer is a 0% Annualized Percentage Rate on the loan amount on the vehicles. This feature makes it all the more attractive for buyers who are apprehensive of interest charges while buying a car. A dealership that provides 0% APR is one of the most amazing deals customers can get this festive season.

Rishab Malik, Co-Founder and VP – Business Development, Droom said, "With the launch of the new vehicles category, we also decided to make the accessibility of the products greater. To this end we are pleased to associate with CashCare and help fulfill the dreams of many of our customers in a quicker and more efficient way. The introductory offer of 0% APR is truly incredible and will further enhance the affinity that vehicle buyers feel for this new service."

CashCare Founder and CEO, Vikas Sekri further added, "Droom has emerged as a significant market innovator in the automobile buy/sell market. As a real-time finance provider, CashCare understands car buyers’ needs for hassle-free and quick disbursal of loans. We hope to facilitate many customers through our association with Droom and help them drive their dream vehicles home this festive season."

Droom has further added to its unmatched reputation of being a complete service facilitator by ensuring procedures at the Regional Transport Office (RTO) are taken care of, with varying charges depending on the type of vehicle and location of RTO. Furthermore, there is a one-year manufacturer warranty available on every vehicle bought through it which is also delivered within 30 days of order placement. Droom buyers also benefit in terms of security as their vehicles are completely covered by the Droom buyer protection policy. With this wide gamut of services and its constant thrust on innovation, Droom has yet again proved its leadership position in the Indian automobile transactions market.

Droom is among the fastest growing consumer Internet companies in India with 74K+ B2C sellers, 25K+ products, 102K+ listings, Rs.5,330 Cr+ in listed GMV, 2.5 Mil+ FB Likes (highest for any automobile community in India) and over 3.2 Mil+ downloads for mobile apps.

Commenting on the achievement, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom said, "It is a moment of great pride for all of us at Droom to have been named as one of the 2016 Red Herring Top 100 Asia award winners. Given the extensive evaluation criteria on the basis of which we have been selected, the news comes as a great boost to our motivation. It further validates our efforts across the denominators of business success and propels us to fulfill our vision of making Droom a global phenomenon."

"In 2016, selecting the top achievers was difficult as always," said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. "The variety, depth, disruption and traction we saw from the early stage companies to those with significant scale made 2016 a great vintage to judge. The Asia winners are representative of the amazing ecosystem that never ceases to astound, with new and experienced entrepreneurs continuing to push the barriers of innovation. As one of the winners, Droom should be proud of its accomplishment."

Each year, Red Herring Top 100 Asia Awards enlists outstanding entrepreneurs and promising companies. It selects the award winners from approximately 2,000 privately-financed companies each in the Asian region. Since 1996, Red Herring has kept tabs on the upcoming organizations and its editors were among the first to recognize that companies such as Google, Facebook, Kakao, Alibaba, Twitter, Rakuten, Salesforce.com, Xiaomi and YouTube would change the way we live and work.

Red Herring’s editorial staff evaluated companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technological innovation and intellectual property, DNA of the founders, business model, customer footprint and market penetration. This assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the track record and standing of startups relative to their sector peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the "buzz" and make the list a valuable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the most promising new business models in Asia.

Red Herring is a global media company, which unites the world’s best high technology innovators, venture investors and business decision makers in a variety of forums, including print, online and exclusive events worldwide. Red Herring provides an insider’s view and access to the global innovation economy, identifying new and innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs.

Presently, automobiles from all the other brands except Mahindra are available in Delhi-NCR region while Droom facilitates buy/sell of Mahindra vehicles on a pan-India basis.

Commenting on the announcement, Sandeep Aggarwal - founder and CEO, Droom said, "After 18 months of successfully selling 30,000 used vehicles and generating a revenue of Rs 1,200 crore annualised GMV and growing 700% year-on-year, we are proud to finally be a part of the new vehicle market."

"Earlier, we wanted to focus on the used-vehicle segment and change the way it functions through the use of digital tools. In the same vein, we want to create a paradigm shift in the still conventionally-run new vehicle sector and bring about a positive disruption for the benefit of the end consumer," he said.

The pre-requisites for loan application involve proof of Indian citizenship, birth/age proof for verification as an adult, 18 months of service/profession/business history and a government photo-id.

Various offers such as an iPhone 7 and iPad are also being bundled in.

The new automobiles will be sold at Droom with basic listing prices and will be equipped with services like instant auto loans and vehicle insurance.

This will also include a bank loan 50% of vehicle value pre-approved and door-step test drive among other things. The startup has already tied up with Nissan, Chevrolet, Skoda, Mahindra and Hero Electric.

"Earlier, we wanted to focus on the used-vehicle segment and change the way it functions through the use of digital tools. In the same vein, we want to now create a paradigm shift in the still conventionally-run new vehicle sector and bring about a positive disruption for the benefit of the end consumer," said Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and chief executive at Gurgaon-based Droom Technology Pvt. Ltd, which owns the marketplace.

Aggarwal left e-commerce marketplace ShopClues, which he founded in 2013, and founded Droom in 2014.

Droom will sell new vehicles from companies such as Nissan Motor India Pvt. Ltd, Skoda Auto India Pvt. Ltd, Hero Electric and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, Aggarwal said.

Droom currently does an annualized GMV (gross merchandise value or cost of goods sold) of Rs1,200 crore and aims to touch Rs3,000 crore by March 2017 and Rs 5,000 crore by December 2017.

Auto makers will get to have their own brand stores on Droom where they can put up videos, brochures and announcements.

Droom will offer test drives at customers’ doorstep.

The company operates with gross margins of 1.5-2.5% in the new vehicle segment and about 1-1.5% in the used vehicle segment.

According to Aggarwal, online sales of automobiles is an immense market opportunity. The online segment is currently a $400 million market and is expected to touch $20 billion by 2020, he claims.

In June, Droom raised an undisclosed amount in a round led by Singapore-based early-stage technology fund Beenext, Japan’s start-up investment and incubation firm Digital Garage and existing investors Lightbox and Beenos.

The company has raised over $40 million since its founding, Mint reported.

Droom claims to have more than 74,000 sellers, 25,000 products and 102,000 listings. It aims to expand to 200 cities by 2017.

The company also expects to launch its international operations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines over the next 10-12 months.

The average ticket size in the scooters category is Rs40,000 and Rs68,000 in motorcycles category. In the cars segment, it is Rs3.5 lakh.

Droom currently gets 65% of its orders from the two-wheeler segment, 30% from cars and the rest from services.

The company expects the new automobiles segment to contribute about 10-15% by March 2017 and 20-25% of sales by 2017-end.

Droom, which has reported more than 700% year-on-year revenue, plans to adopt an aggressive performance-linked marketing approach which will see country-wide spread of the advertisements.

Commenting on the marketing budget, Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO Droom, said, "Our focus completely lies in implementing high return-on-investment promotion options. Furthermore, the 360-degree marketing initiatives will also help us achieve our goal of reaching an annualized GMV of Rs. 3000 crore by the end of 2016 and Rs. 5,000-7,000 crore by the end of 2017 by enhancing consumer tendency to look at the benefits of purchasing their dream vehicles through us."

Keeping this trend in mind along with the upcoming festive season when the propensity to purchase vehicles is the highest, Droom will be rolling out the marketing initiatives well in advance. Of the total Rs.100 crore budget, Rs. 25 crore has been allocated to TV, outdoor, print and radio advertising and other ATL activities.

Considering the huge market available digitally, a further Rs. 25 crore has been assigned to digital promotional activities such as search engine optimization, online ads etc. With the festive season in the offing, deals and discounts would also feature significantly in the marketing budget allocation.

Catering to seven different cities including Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad and Mumbai, Droom envisions Rs. 100 crore budget as the minimum threshold, rather than the maximum value allocation, and plans to raise the industry standards of marketing expenditure through its upcoming brand building activities.

Droom, which has reported more than 700% year-on-year revenue, plans to adopt an aggressive performance-linked marketing approach which will see country-wide spread of the advertisements. Automobiles, being a big-ticket item, have a significant gestation period which may last from a minimum one month to a year.

Commenting on the king-size marketing budget, Droom CEO and founder Sandeep Aggarwal said, "Buying a used vehicle is still shrouded in great doubt for many Indian consumers. This year, through our marketing efforts, we hope to instil a sense of pride in the buyers when they purchase a pre-owned automobile. Our focus completely lies in implementing high Return-On-investment promotion options. Furthermore, the 360-degree marketing initiatives will also help us achieve our goal of reaching an annualized GMV of INR 3000 crore by the end of 2016 and INR 5-7,000 crore by the end of 2017 by enhancing consumer tendency to look at the benefits of purchasing their dream vehicles through us."

Keeping this trend in mind along with the upcoming festive season when the propensity to purchase vehicles is the highest, Droom will be rolling out the marketing initiatives well in advance. Of the total 100cr budget, INR 25 crore has been allocated to TV, outdoor, print and radio advertising and other ATL activities. Considering the huge market available digitally, a further INR 25 crore has been assigned to digital promotional activities such as Search Engine optimization, online ads etc. With the festive season in the offing, deals and discounts would also feature significantly in the marketing budget allocation.

Droom’s marketing campaign would be a round-the-year process with periods of heightened activity. Catering to seven different cities including Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad and Mumbai, Droom envisions INR 100 crore budget as the minimum threshold, rather than the maximum value allocation, and plans to raise the industry standards of marketing expenditure through its upcoming brand building activities.

Droom, which has reported more than 700% year-on-year revenue, plans to adopt an aggressive performance-linked marketing approach which will see country-wide spread of the advertisements. Automobiles, being a big-ticket item, have a significant gestation period which may last from a minimum one month to a year.

Commenting on the king-size marketing budget, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO Droom, said, "Buying a used vehicle is still shrouded in great doubt for many Indian consumers. This year, through our marketing efforts, we hope to instil a sense of pride in the buyers when they purchase a pre-owned automobile. Our focus completely lies in implementing high Return-On-investment promotion options. Furthermore, the 360-degree marketing initiatives will also help us achieve our goal of reaching an annualized GMV of INR 3000 crore by the end of 2016 and INR 5-7,000 crore by the end of 2017 by enhancing consumer tendency to look at the benefits of purchasing their dream vehicles through us."

Keeping this trend in mind along with the upcoming festive season when the propensity to purchase vehicles is the highest, Droom will be rolling out the marketing initiatives well in advance. Of the total 100cr budget, INR 25 crore has been allocated to TV, outdoor, print and radio advertising and other ATL activities. Considering the huge market available digitally, a further INR 25 crore has been assigned to digital promotional activities such as Search Engine optimization, online ads etc. With the festive season in the offing, deals and discounts would also feature significantly in the marketing budget allocation.

Droom’s marketing campaign would be a round-the-year process with periods of heightened activity. Catering to seven different cities including Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad and Mumbai, Droom envisions INR 100 crore budget as the minimum threshold, rather than the maximum value allocation, and plans to raise the industry standards of marketing expenditure through its upcoming brand building activities.

The event was chiefly aimed at fostering community building and facilitating dealer interaction with senior management at Droom.

With over 68k sellers on board its platform, Droom currently has the largest seller community for any online automobile platform in the country.

"Sellers are a very important part of our vision of a holistic, digitally-driven automobile marketplace. Organizing the Sellers Summit is our way of expressing our gratitude for the continued support of the community and to give them greater opportunities to boost their business with us," said Co-Founder and VP Business Development Droom, Rishab Malik.

"This summit will help us to gain further insights from dealers and will help us in designing future collaborations that can be mutually beneficial and deliver optimum interests for both buyers and sellers," added Rishab Malik.

Droom also announced a slew of awards that were distributed at the Summit. The list includes awards such as on-balance-volume champion, fcts champion, best service-level agreement award, best practices with the least number of order cancellations, eco inspection champion, most responsive seller amongst others.

The summit saw the company discussing its future business strategies and plans for the coming year with over 500 dealers from cities such as Delhi, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Bhatinda, Ahmedabad and others.

The event also encouraged seller interaction with different teams such as product, marketing and tech to provide partner dealers with a better understanding of Droom's business model and how it can benefit them.

With over 68k sellers on board its platform, Droom currently has the largest seller community for any online automobile platform in the country.

"Sellers are a very important part of our vision of a holistic, digitally-driven automobile marketplace. Organizing the Sellers Summit is our way of expressing our gratitude for the continued support of the community and to give them greater opportunities to boost their business with us," said Co-Founder and VP Business Development Droom, Rishab Malik.

"This summit will help us to gain further insights from dealers and will help us in designing future collaborations that can be mutually beneficial and deliver optimum interests for both buyers and sellers," added Rishab Malik.

Droom also announced a slew of awards that were distributed at the Summit. The list includes awards such as on-balance-volume champion, fcts champion, best service-level agreement award, best practices with the least number of order cancellations, eco inspection champion, most responsive seller amongst others.

The summit saw the company discussing its future business strategies and plans for the coming year with over 500 dealers from cities such as Delhi, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Bhatinda, Ahmedabad and others.

The event also encouraged seller interaction with different teams such as product, marketing and tech to provide partner dealers with a better understanding of Droom's business model and how it can benefit them.

The Orange Book Value destination website and the app cover all the automobile segment, which include cars, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, even airplanes too. These platforms provide the users correct market value of their used automobiles. The users can download and share the pricing report also. And all of these services are provided without any fees.

To avail the services, all the users need to do is access the www.orangebookvalue.com. The website comes with a convenient and user friendly layout. In the website users can check the end pricing of their used vehicle and also they can share it on various social network platforms and with the designated persons they want to share with. The app too comes with easy to use features.

Talking about this unique service the founder and CEO of Droom, Mr. Sandeep Aggarwal, has said, the Orange Book Value is India’s first and only algorithmic pricing engine to measure the true market value of any used vehicle. He also added, that this marks a historic day for the entire auto industry in India. He also informs that the Droom has managed to generate more than 72 million queries in the last seven months.

In Top Gear

Droom has over 62,000 sellers across the country, over 97,000 listing on its platform and an annualised GMV of $200 million, claims founder Sandeep Aggarwal, declining to disclose the amount raised last May.

What is helping the startup stand out in a highly cluttered market which has heavyweights such as CarTrade, CarDekho and Quikr, is its proprietary technological innovations, claims Aggarwal. While Orange Book Value, he points out, is an algorithmic pricing engine to calculate the market value of any used automobile, Full Circle Trust Score helps buyers in taking more informed decisions and avoid risks.

"These innovations have improved the trust factor associated with buying and selling vehicles online," says Aggarwal, adding that it has also brought about a pricing advantage to buyers and sellers through advanced algorithms and data science. This adds great value to the end-user transactional experience, and has served to differentiate us from the competition, he says.

With OBV, users can calculate the true market value of a used vehicle in less than 10 seconds, that too for free. They can also download/share pricing report in no time. OBV is designed keeping user convenience as a top priority.

The US patent-certified OBV pricing engine is built on Droom's proprietary computational infrastructure and real-time data science which analyses empirical evidences to give the final price value of any used vehicle.

It considers various factors like purpose (buying/selling), depreciation curves, margins and spreads with intermediaries as any vehicle changes ownerships, and dozens of factors that impact the valuation of an automobile.

"Today is a historical day for the entire auto industry in India as we are launching Orange Book Value (OBV), India's first and only algorithmic pricing engine to measure the true market value for any used automobile. For the last two years, we have deployed dozens of development engineers who have diligently worked and made this launch a great success," said Founder and CEO Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

"We have already managed to generate almost 72 million queries in the last seven months. Having spent millions of dollars on this innovation, the app is so convenient that a user can check the price of any used vehicle within ten seconds and can avail the pricing report free of cost," added Aggarwal.

This partnership will allow our partners to use Orange Book Value as benchmark pricing for used vehicles and leverage our computational infrastructure and US patented technologies to find out fair market value of used vehicles.

"We have developed OBV with a long-term vision of making it the most trusted valuation guide for automobiles, be it a cycle, bike, car or even an Airplane. Droom is a technology and data science driven company and with us innovate and disruptive marketplace approach, we build trust, pricing, transparency and convenience advantages in a unique way for buyers and sellers for used automobiles. The launch of this website is a step towards this commitment to our users," he added.

This will allow users to measure the fair market value for any used automobile in less than 10 seconds with the help of basic parameters like make, model, year, trim and kilometers driven.

The company claims OBV to be India’s first and only algorithmic benchmark ‘pricing engine’ for used vehicles.

More About OBV

The US patent-certified OBV pricing engine is built on Droom’s proprietary computational infrastructure and real-time data science. The final price analysis of the used vehicle is based on empirical evidences like purpose (buying/selling), depreciation curves, margins, etc.

It also takes into account intermediaries as the vehicle changes ownership, and dozens of factors that impact the valuation of an automobile.

As Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom said, "We have developed OBV with a long-term vision of making it the most-trusted valuation guide for automobiles — be it a cycle, bike, car or even an aeroplane. Droom is a technology and data science driven company and with an innovative and disruptive marketplace approach, we build trust, pricing, transparency and convenience advantages in a unique way for buyers and sellers for used automobiles. The launch of this website is a step towards this commitment to our users."

This partnership will allow our partners to use Orange Book Value as benchmark pricing for used vehicles and leverage our computational infrastructure and US patented technologies to find out fair market value of used vehicles.

"We have developed OBV with a long-term vision of making it the most trusted valuation guide for automobiles, be it a cycle, bike, car or even an Airplane. Droom is a technology and data science driven company and with us innovate and disruptive marketplace approach, we build trust, pricing, transparency and convenience advantages in a unique way for buyers and sellers for used automobiles. The launch of this website is a step towards this commitment to our users," he added.

With OBV, users can calculate the true market value of a used vehicle in less than 10 seconds, that too for free. They can also download/share pricing report in no time. OBV is designed keeping user convenience as a top priority.

The US patent-certified OBV pricing engine is built on Droom's proprietary computational infrastructure and real-time data science which analyses empirical evidences to give the final price value of any used vehicle.

It considers various factors like purpose (buying/selling), depreciation curves, margins and spreads with intermediaries as any vehicle changes ownerships, and dozens of factors that impact the valuation of an automobile.

"Today is a historical day for the entire auto industry in India as we are launching Orange Book Value (OBV), India's first and only algorithmic pricing engine to measure the true market value for any used automobile. For the last two years, we have deployed dozens of development engineers who have diligently worked and made this launch a great success," said Founder and CEO Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal.

"We have already managed to generate almost 72 million queries in the last seven months. Having spent millions of dollars on this innovation, the app is so convenient that a user can check the price of any used vehicle within ten seconds and can avail the pricing report free of cost," added Aggarwal.

This partnership will allow our partners to use Orange Book Value as benchmark pricing for used vehicles and leverage our computational infrastructure and US patented technologies to find out fair market value of used vehicles.

"We have developed OBV with a long-term vision of making it the most

trusted valuation guide for automobiles, be it a cycle, bike, car or even an Airplane. Droom is a technology and data science driven company and with us innovate and disruptive marketplace approach, we build trust, pricing, transparency and convenience advantages in a unique way for buyers and sellers for used automobiles. The launch of this website is a step towards this commitment to our users," he added.

Today Droom Technology Pvt Ltd launched Orange Book Value (OBV), another service in its array of services offered on the online used automobile marketplace. The Droom team calls OBV "India’s first and only algorithmic benchmark pricing engine to measure the fair market value for any used automobile". OBV will available as a website as well as a mobile app (for android and iOS only).

Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Droom said on the occasion it was about increasing accuracy, minimising error and guesswork in setting a fair market based price for used vehicles across India. "Take for example a girl who moves to Delhi for her studies. She wants to buy a scooty. She has no way of knowing what the right price for a scooty would be. OBV’s algorithm will help decide with more accuracy what the market price is, and what others are paying for a scooty in the area she wants to buy it".

The Droom team of engineers, data scientists, product managers and marketing managers led by Sandeep and co-founder Rishab Malik has used empirical evidence gathered from the OBV platform built in to the Droom website in a bid to make the search engine as accurate as possible. The US patent pending algorithm OBV uses has been developed using data gathered across 13 months, 30,000 customer transaction, 61,000 auto dealers and 650 crore worth of transactions. The algorithm is vendor agnostic and uses real time data to provide search results.

Sandeep’s vision for OBV to be the go-to automobile bible for all answers when buying a used vehicle is evident. OBV has even been made available as a widget automobile bloggers and any enthusiast can embed in their own websites. "It gives such bloggers and content creators the opportunity to monetize their platforms by embedding OBV in their blogs etc". Then there are more plans to promote OBV across the banking community, and even publish a guidebook called the OBV to be used by underwriters. OBV already has the endorsement of Indian vehicle monoliths like RenewBuy and Carnation. Carnation founder Mr. Jagdish Khattar speaking on the occasion said OBV will "help the buyer, seller, and automobile industry". Sandeep has further plans to add more offerings to enhance the Droom customer experience. "We plan to add more historical information on the vehicles searched for. For example like name of previous owner, price it was bought for etc."

Sandeep, who is also a founder of ShopClues now the fifth unicorn in the Indian startup ecosystem certainly has the Midas touch. Despite the unfortunate run in with the FBI, Aggarwal has the instinct for what will make a fortune. The used automobile industry is larger than the market for new vehicles in India. Somendra, part of OBV team says the ratio is 1.2:1 and potentially could be a billion dollar industry. Cofounder of Droom, Rishab said that the current used vehicle market in India is about 125 billion dollars a year while the potential to grow within India and beyond (beginning with the South Asian region) in the next 3 or so years is tremendous. Sandeep added that the launch of OBV will stand to create 18000 more transfers by next March while Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) could increase to 3,000 Cr.

Eager to invest in a market that is home to more than 12,000 start-ups and, they believe, at the tipping point for growth, a slew of Chinese investors are committing to new Indian ventures even as their American and European peers take a step back.

Their ultimate aim? To pick a winner capable of emulating the Chinese Unicorns – firms worth more than US$1 billion.

The trend started with a trickle in January last year when Hillhouse Capital invested US$50 million in the start-up CarDekho, an online automobile search engine. Soon after, press reports suggested Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post, and its financial-services affiliate were investing more than half a billion US dollars in Paytm, an e-commerce website that subsequently turned into a Unicorn. In August, Indian e-commerce company Snapdeal.com said it had raised US$500 million from investors including Alibaba and Foxconn.

With many struggling to stay afloat, quite a few have been acquired by other start-ups.

"The sector went through a phase of irrational funding that went bust a few months back. And now, funding has come to a state of halt," said Sandeep Aggarwal, founder of an automobile portal, Droom, that raised an estimated US$25 million-US$35 million funding in June from undisclosed Japanese and Chinese institutional investors.

According to Aggarwal, Droom is now holding talks with another Chinese investor, Integrated Asset Management, which owns Forbes magazine.

Small wonder then that Indian entrepreneurs are queuing up to woo the Chinese. "After our first event we received requests from at least 1,000 start-ups looking for Chinese investors", said Edward Li of Onionfans.

As India gets set to celebrate its 70th Independence Day, we asked many of them if pursuit of freedom is what led them on to the entrepreneurial journey. And we found that it was indeed the freedom to make one’s own decisions, follow one’s own passion, be one’s own boss, the freedom to dream and chase those dreams, that inspired most entrepreneurs to set out on their own.

Here is what few of them had to say about the connection between freedom and entrepreneurship.

Freedom to take risks

Sandeep Aggarwal, founder, Shopclues (e-commerce marketplace) and Droom (online marketplace for automobiles & auto services).

Being an entrepreneur, in my opinion, is mostly about taking control of one’s own destiny and pursuing innovative solutions to address market gaps. The freedom to take risks and carve one’s own path in today’s highly-charged, dynamic business ecosystem is definitely a major motivation for any aspiring entrepreneur. This is what has been driving many top professionals from across the globe to leave their plush, high-paying jobs in leading MNCs and establish their own ventures.

Interestingly, Naspers had sold its used-car platform Gaadi.com to Google Capital-backed rival CarDekho.

Observers feel that the used car market is set to grow at a fast clip over the next few years and will get more organized thanks to online players. "The share of organized sector in the used-car market is going to grow from the current 15-20% to 30-40% over the next four to five years," says Rajeev Singh, head, automotive, KPMG. "Once the market becomes that big, it will open up huge opportunities for current as well as new players," he adds.

In an effort to seize the current opportunity and also to incentivize customers to come online to buy and sell old cars, the portals are offering a whole gamut of services including facilitating car loans, getting insurance, ensuring professional assessment of vehicles, as well as refurbishing the old vehicle with authorized parts, among other things.

"Market has dramatically changed over time. Earlier, the online platforms had only two types of offerings- classifieds and content creation, but now we offer much more than that," says Sandeep Aggarwal, founder, Droom, another marketplace for second-hand automobiles. "New cars industry is growing at the rate of 8-9% and the used-automobile industry is growing at the rate of 15%," he said explaining the rush among entrepreneurs as well as investors to ride the sector.

It is not surprising, therefore, that a lot of investors have placed big bets on these platforms in the past seven months. Here is a quick look at some of them:

Droom

Company: Droom Technology Pvt Ltd

Former CEO of e-commerce marketplace Shopclues, Sandeep Aggarwal founded Droom in 2014 and the company claims to be the first platform of its kind to allow customers to buy and sell new-and pre-owned automobiles. It deals in various categories ranging from bicycles, bikes, scooters, cars to luxury, premium and vintage cars and bikes. It raised an undisclosed amount from venture capital investors Beenext, Lightbox Ventures and Japanese investors Digital Garage and Beenos in its latest round of funding in June this year.

"We have been witnessing tremendous growth over the past 16 months in terms of adoption by sellers, number of categories and listings, and geographical presence in 142 cities across India, and transactions," Aggarwal had said at the time of funding. In July 2015, the company had raised close to $16 million from Lightbox and Beenos and before that, it had raised seed funds over two rounds in May and October 2014.

The platform caters to over 41,000 B2C sellers, more than 25000 products and over 62000 listing of vehicles.

Aggarwal said the company is aiming at a five-fold increase in business in one year to `5,000-6,000 crore in annualised gross merchandise value. The company hopes to close the current fiscal with Rs 3,000 crore in annualised GMV, he said. Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, the Gurgaon-based startup is backed by venture capital firm Lightbox, Singapore-based investor Beenext, Beenos and Japanese incubator and VC firm Digital Garage.

It has so far raised more than Rs 300 crore in funds. Other competitors in the space include Google Capital and HillHouse-backed CarDekho, and Warburg Pincus and Tiger Global Management funded CarTrade.

Although the company gets most of its business from the Delhi-NCR region, over the last few months it has seen significant growth in transactions from cities including Bengaluru, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, Surat and Hyderabad.

Ready for launch in the coming months, Aggarwal maintains it was not an easy problem to solve, given the disparate records and systems that the startup had to deal with. "We had to collate different data from various sources. From getting purchase information from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), registration details from transport ministry, accident data from insurance providers and police records and additional information from data science. It is a tough problem to solve, but we are almost there," says a proud Aggarwal.

Currently the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), Vahan (under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways) maintains a vehicle repository, but they have limited information. If Aggarwal manages to pull this off, it would be, perhaps, the biggest repository of such kind in the country.

Aggarwal's line of thinking stems from the fact that trust is the biggest hurdle to cross when it comes to the used vehicle category and he needs to build a crucial bridge to close this trust gap between the buyers and the sellers. One of the few startups to have raised money this year ($29.8 million in a Series-B round), the detailed repository of the history of used vehicles in India is a step in that direction. Innovation to traction.

In the startup world of cut-throat competition, a late entrant like Droom (launched in 2014 as compared to competitors like CarTrade which was founded in 2010) needs to play the disruptor, and Aggarwal is aware of it. Although the online platform lists all kinds of vehicles on its platform - car, two-wheelers, super bikes, supercars, and planes - however the largest chunk of traction comes from used cars.

It is in this category that the founder's efforts are invested. The startup has developed and launched several tools to help inspire trust in buyers on one hand and improve the saleability of the cars on the other.

Original tools like Eco Inspection and Verification services, Full Circle Trust Score have helped the startup to attract substantial traffic. An algorithm-driven pricing engine called 'Orange Book Value' has alone generated 67 million queries for the startup.

Tools to attract money

These innovations, Aggarwal claims, have not only helped in attracting business, but also the money required to do this business. "These tools enabled us to perform on a very high steam. Also, these tools were very helpful in giving glimpses of potential traction to our investors and in showing them how it can help us to develop stronger competitive differentiation versus our competition," says Aggarwal.

The efforts are visible in the improved traction of Droom.in. Aggarwal claims that there have been a significant increase in the last six months in the various parameters the startup evaluates for performance - from 25,000 B2C sellers to 58,000 sellers, lifetime listings from 1 lakh to 2.2 lakh, from being available in 25 cities to 160 cities, from Gross merchandise volume (GMV) worth Rs 45 crore/month to Rs 100 crore/month and more importantly, from 1.8 million monthly visitors to four million visitors per month.

"For any hyper local marketplace, we have created the biggest footprint in this space. While many ecommerce companies have seen ups and downs and investors have pulled back, we have continued to see a phase of hyper growth," says Aggarwal.

Aggarwal is confident that Droom will continue to disrupt the market with its innovations and it is these creations rather than investors that he promises to continue to chase.

The latest move from Droom is aimed at making bike ownership more convenient and affordable for the aspiring Indian consumer. The campaign will be rolled out across all major cities such as Delhi/NCR, Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai and Ahmedabad which can be accessed through Droom’s web and mobile platform.

Speaking on the campaign, Rishab Malik, Co-founder and VP, Business Development, Droom, said, "We have, through our focus on transparency, convenience and value-addition, established ourselves as the platform of choice for both buyers and sellers in the country. Our latest India’s Biggest Bike Mela is aimed at furthering our brand proposition. With top-selling bike models from verified sellers available to buyers at highly cost-effective prices, we are confident that the campaign will be a major hit with the Indian consumer looking to fulfil their bike ownership requirements."

Hot deals and discounts available on select bike models make Droom’s IBBM an opportunity that should not be missed for Indian bike enthusiasts. So what are you waiting for? Log onto www.Droom.in, or open the Droom mobile app to browse through the widest collection of bikes on sale!

Firstly, 'CommonFloor' helps you to find accommodation. With this, online house search can be conducted before moving to a new city.

Secondly, 'Furlenco' helps you to get furniture for your house on a rental basis.

Thirdly, 'HelpChat,' India's biggest personal assistant app with more than two million downloads, provides timely help and suggestions and reminds you about important things.

Next is 'UrbanClap,' that provides the simplest way to find and hire trusted professionals in the area like plumbers, electricians, chefs and more.

'Paytm,' India's largest mobile payment and commerce platform, holds great potential for students settling in a new city.

Finally, 'Droom,' is an online marketplace for buying and selling used automobiles, with its special discounts for college students. (ANI)

Droom, India’s pioneering online transactional marketplace for automobiles, is back with Scooter Looter Sale from July 16 to July 19 to make scooter ownership extremely affordable for its users. With verified and inspected scooters in six top-selling models available at massive discounts, Droom’s latest offer is an opportunity that should not be missed!

The Scooter Looter Sale from Droom can be accessed through its web and mobile platform, and will be available to users in cities such as Delhi/NCR, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai, Jaipur and Ahmedabad. More than 3000 plus pre-owned scooters from top-selling models such as Honda Activa, Suzuki Suzuki Access, Hero Maestro, Honda Aviator Honda Dio, TVS Jupiter and TVS Wego will be available under the sale.

Speaking on the deal, Rishab Malik, Co-founder and VP, Business Development, Droom, said, "There is a growing demand for scooters from the Indian consumer, which is why we come up again with Scooter Looter Sale focusing on the top cities across India. By making quality-assured and verified pre-loved scooters available to our users at the lowest possible price, we are confident that we will delight automobile enthusiasts again by providing a wonderful opportunity to meet their scooter ownership requirements."

With up to INR 11000 off on select models, Droom is offering jaw-dropping discounts to make scooter ownership a tangible reality for auto enthusiasts across the country. So what are you waiting for? Visit www.droom.in/scooterlooter today to check out these hard-to-miss deals and become the proud owner of your own set of wheels!

Startup Buzz Media recently had a chat with the founder and CEO, Sandeep Aggarwal. Here is what he had to say.

Ques. How did the idea of Droom come about? When did it struck you?

After ShopClues, I was looking at a bigger issue to address through technology; something with a scope of a big internet company. I also realized that online and print automobile classifieds are not the solution to the problems of the buyers and sellers. This is when the idea of Droom came to me.

Ques. How is Droom different from OLX, CarDekho and other such companies?

Unlike online classifieds like OLX and discovery platforms such as CarDekho, we are end-to-end service providers. We don’t only post listings on our website; we also provide 360-degree assistance to the users. Droom is one-of- its-kind platform in India.

Ques. People here are still opening up to such online platforms. How comfortable do you think they are using such online services right now?

People are definitely opening up and embracing online purchases. Until a few years ago, people were only buying books online. Then, they started buying clothes, shoes and electronics. Today, people are even buying LED 3D TVs. From finding dates to looking for home loans, people are depending on the internet to do everything. The trend shows that they are ready for big ticket items like automobiles. Out of 1.3 billion Indians, 350 million are internet users and 60 million are online shopper. Out of this 60 million, 15 million users (25%) buy multiple items online every year. These people are our core online shoppers. It is estimated that by 2020, this number will increase to 100 million. These are some very good numbers.

Ques. How hard is it to reach out to tier 2 and tier 3 cities and what is Droom doing to get its customer base there?

Until September 2015, we were operational only in NCR. Now, we are active in 150 cities out of which we are already generating good revenue from more than 75 cities. We have a unique value proposition- trust, transparency and pricing. It is a mass appeal and not just an urban appeal. This is why, we have been making good inroads to these tier 2 and tier 3 cities.

Ques. How does Droom go about ensuring these three parameters of trust, transparency and pricing?

We have multiple features like ECO- an independent app to get an unbiased and objective vehicle inspection report. This report is based on 121 exhaustive checkpoints. Also, we use data sciences to maintain the trust factor. We also provide full circle trust score to ensure the buyers that they are dealing with trustworthy sellers. All our listings are rated based on 15 factors. Our effort is always directed towards making the transaction transparent.

Ques. Please shine some light on the growth and sales numbers of Droom.

We sold our first vehicle on 7th January 2015. Since then, we have sold over 30,000 vehicles. At present, we have over 59k sellers and 88k+ listings. Our annualized GMV stands at 4,102Cr+.

Ques. What is Droom doing in terms of marketing?

Since, our customer base comprises of internet users, we majorly use digital marketing. We want to target the core online shoppers. In our industry, brand and product perceptions play a very important role. And for this precise reason, we have adopted the way of digital performance based marketing, social media, e-mailers and promotional activities. Currently, Droom has a 2.1 million Facebook fan base. Due to this, Droom is the largest automobile-focused community today.

Ques. You have implemented machine learning technology in your customer support division. Does it also extend to other departments?

Machine learning and AI in data sciences are at the heart of Droom. We have managed the feat of generating 1000 crore business with just 4 people in customer support. Because of machine learning at the core of our processes, we can manage a seller-robot communication without an error. Our platform can also automate notification processes for e.g., if a particular listing doesn’t get any response for 10 days, it can notify the user and also suggest them to lower the price of the listing. In this market category, Droom is easily the most advanced market place. Because of this, we are still a staff of 170 people with a 1000 crore annualized GMV. Nowhere in India can you see that.

Ques. You recently completed your Series B round of funding? What are Droom’s plans from here on?

We will be expanding our categories to auto-loan and insurance. We have earmarked this money to expand to south-east Asia because we believe that we have a global opportunity here.

Ques. Along with running Droom, you also actively invest in startups. What do you look for in a startup? More importantly, what do you look for in an entrepreneur?

Being a prolific investor, I see if the founders are energetic and passionate. Are they being driven by vision or just the need to be their own boss? I like to invest in technology-driven businesses. So, I like to think in terms of how important a role that technology is going to play in our lives and how uniquely qualified is the person to solve a problem.

Ques. In India, we see a lot of service-based startups but rarely a product-based startup. What do you think is the reason for this trend?

The problem lies in our system. We missed out on Industrial Revolution of 1760. After Aryabhata, we have not produced an inventor like Edison or Graham Bell. It actually also depends on the aptitude. In our business ecosystem, product-based companies are deemed as very risky. We have a bias towards rewarding something that can be profitable sooner.

Ques. What is an average day at work like?

I am basically a high-energy, high-passion kind of a person. And then I am paranoid too. As Andrew Grove has said in his book, "Only the paranoid survives", I take even the smallest of the problems very seriously. I think that level of seriousness and dedication is the way to top. Saying that, on a typical day, I work for 17-19 hours. I wake up at around 6:30 am, go to gym, start checking mails after that. It is usually a working breakfast for me. I reach office around 10 am where, being a CPO too, I spend 60% of my time in discussing and strategizing products. Apart from this, interaction with teams is a daily routine to which I give very high importance. Remaining of my time is spent on PR and marketing activities.

Ques. How do you balance your professional life with your personal life?

Sometimes I don’t see my kids for days despite living under the same roof. But having worked with 4 Fortune 500 companies, I think I have come to terms with the reality. To succeed, one needs to make some sacrifices. Nevertheless, we keep going on small unplanned vacations and spend quality family time there. I think taking such breaks with family is a must for anyone.

Ques. Looking back, what do you wish you knew before you started your first business?

Just start following your passion; don’t wait for a perfect time to start. I wish I had started earlier. I was a young kid when my father started his business. While helping him with branding, challan book, etc, I came face to face with a business model which I had no understanding of at that point. I was doing those things naturally without realizing they were entrepreneurial in nature.

Ques. One book that you think all aspiring entrepreneurs must read.

Books really motivate me. I have more than 850 books. They have travelled with me to two different continents and seven different cities. Out of them, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outlier is my most favourite.

Ques. You had put in your own money into your earlier startup, ShopClues. Can you briefly recount those days of struggle?

Starting ShopClues was not easy. I had a very well-paying job at Silicon Valley. I wanted to be an entrepreneur but at the same time I thought I had worked very hard my entire life to be here. So walking away from all that was not at all an easy decision. I started moonlighting on the idea of ShopClues. I was alone in the beginning and it was hard. But then I realized that if I don’t believe in my conviction, how will I convince others? I spent $200,000 on ShopClues from my own pocket before I got any other investors on board.

Ques. Some words of motivation for the young entrepreneurs.

If you have a vision and you feel you can do better than what you are doing now at your job, then go after your dream by all means. The regret of knowing your dream and not doing anything about it is bigger than any other regret. Don’t do it because you want to be your own boss. Don’t do it just because you have money. Do it only if you have the dream and that passion in you.

He has raised four rounds of capital, totalling nearly $46 million. The last round, its biggest at an estimated $30 million, came in June this year amid the doom and gloom in India's e-commerce industry. Investors, including the likes of Singapore's BEENEXT, Digital Garage from Japan, Beenos and Indian VC firm Lightbox, saw great execution. After ShopClues, Aggarwal was keen on building a second marketplace, one that connects buyers and sellers of used vehicles. But back in 2014, when there were no numbers to validate his business plan, Aggarwal managed to convince some that he can make money organising what is largely an unorganised market.

One of the earliest investors to back Droom was Sid Talwar of Lightbox. He knew Aggarwal well. "There are very few successful marketplaces in the world. Sandeep understood how to build a marketplace," he says. What also convinced him was the fact that marketplaces for transactions in India's online automobile world did not exist in 2014. "People were doing classifieds (OLX and Quikr) and discovery (CarWale and CarDekho). The lacuna was trust and transparency. America had created an efficient market for used cars, but India didn't have that," Talwar explains.

Of course, the market itself is like an eight-lane highway. India is the third largest automobile economy in the world after China and the US, with transactions worth $100 billion each year. According to data from SIAM, domestic sales of two-wheelers grew 3 per cent to 16,455,911 units in 2015/16, while passenger vehicles rose 7 per cent to 2,789,678 units. The used vehicles market is even bigger in terms of volumes. About 1.3 used cars are sold for every new car, and 1.6 used two-wheelers are sold for every new one. Besides vehicle sales, there is the automobile services market worth about $25 billion.

"India now has a sizeable installed base. Plus, people are changing their vehicles more often. But then the experience of buying a used automobile is ancient. This industry could benefit from new innovations," Aggarwal says, animatedly, sitting in his conference room adorned with car models.

Droom's innovations have led to an upward ratchet of impressive numbers. The company, today, has an annualised GMV of $175 million, by mostly aiding two-wheeler transactions (65 per cent), cars (30 per cent) and services such as warranty, repair and maintenance, and roadside assistance (5 per cent). The start-up is targeting $500 million in GMV by 2017. Its website lists everything that has a wheel and a motor - from bicycles and super bikes to luxury cars, planes and yachts. It charges a commission of 1.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent from the seller for transactions, a 12 per cent commission for services, and a premium subscription from professional sellers. The firm has 47,000 dealers listed. These numbers, which wowed even the jury of Business Today's Coolest Start-ups edition, were garnered because Droom was able to solve the lacuna that Talwar of Lightbox mentioned, that of trust and transparency.

"Unlike the US, Western Europe or Japan, India is a low-trust market. We saw this as an opportunity," Aggarwal states. He along with his team devised five pillars to answer typical questions that concern buyers and sellers. The company launched Eco, a way of inspecting a vehicle. Both the seller and buyer may want to buy an Eco report of a vehicle before transacting - the seller to improve his chances of selling and the buyer to avoid unpleasant surprises. Once the demand for a report is generated, an independent auto mechanic is tasked by Droom to inspect.

Along with Eco, Droom also built the 'Full Circle Trust Score' that uses data science to rate a listing. The score, between 1 and 10, is arrived at by considering different metrics - the pictures uploaded, the quality of pictures, whether the seller is verified, if he is offering auto inspection and warranty, and also the pricing. Like most online auto portals, Droom, too, has a pricing engine. Its third pillar, the Orange Book Value, is an algorithmic pricing engine.The last two pillars are about self declaration from the seller about any known problems.

While consumer-to-consumer sales happen, the presence of dealers adds impetus. Business Today spoke to Shyam Trehan, whose family owns Rahul Motors, a bike dealer, in Delhi's Karol Bagh. He has been listing on Droom for over a year. "We were previously dependent on walk-in customers. However, Karol Bagh is congested. Walk-in customers dropped over time," he says. Online listing is now generating additional business for him. "We sold around 80 vehicles per month. Now, after listing on Droom, our sales have doubled."

Droom is not alone on the race track; there is growing competition. Apart from the older classified sites and the likes of CarTrade (which acquired CarWale), newer start-ups, too, are offering used auto transactions. There is Spinny promising "200-point, fully inspected used cars", GoZoomo that claims to have "the largest cluster of verified listings", Truebil which is into simplified car trading, Cars24 that assures you can "sell your car in 30 minutes" and CredR that only deals in used bikes.

Aggarwal believes Droom is ahead on the track. The company's innovations around trust, transparency, its focus on engineering and use of data science as well as analytics to measure everything are making it a winner. "We are five years ahead of the market," he asserts.

Someone knocks on the glass door of his conference room. It is time for his next meeting. He must speed off.

Founded in April 2014 in California's Silicon Valley and now based out of Gurgaon, Droom is India's first online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles, and automobile services. Calling itself India's only transaction-oriented online marketplace for automobiles, Droom looks to differentiate from peers such as Cardekho and Cartrade, which are discovery platforms following the classifieds model.

Droom has seen aircraft such as the Falcon, Hawk and Cessna being rented for destination wedding, marriage proposal, corporate events, etc. Through the online marketplace, one can also buy aircraft priced at Rs 47 crore onwards. It also sells yachts, boats and helicopters. Droom offers business-to-business, business-to-customer, and customer-to-customer marketplace options with fixed price, auctions and best offer selling formats.

The start-up raised around $25 million in funding last month, led by Singapore-based investor Beenext and Japanese incubator and venture capital firm Digital Garage. The company had in 2015 raised $16 million from Lightbox Ventures.

Droom.in is now looking to make available segways, golf carts, trucks and buses on its platform.

According to Aggarwal, the start-up will be playing around three areas for its growth - product innovation, categories, and geographies. "I spend 60 per cent of my daily time on product innovation," says Aggarwal, adding the number of new features being added per month shot up from 30 in the first half of 2015 to 120-140 now.

Droom intends to move from the current 16 categories to 22 by March 2017, which will include trucks, buses, segways and golf carts, among others. "We will also expand into fintech and auto loans," says Aggarwal. As for geographies, Droom intends to move up from its current presence in 350 cities.

From a gross market value (GMV) of $160 million (Rs 1,000 crore), the company has set a GMV target of $520 million (Rs 3,500 crore) for FY17. It will continue to focus on the used vehicles space, which offers commissions of up to 12 per cent compared with three per cent in new vehicles category.

Last year, 3.5 million used cars were sold in India and industry estimates suggest sales of used cars will reach eight million units by 2020. The used car market is growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 20-22 per cent and the market is currently valued at $15 billion.

On its part, Droom charges 1.5 per cent of the price of each car sold through its platform and two per cent for two-wheelers. It charges 12 per cent for automobile services such as insurance and warranty.

According to Aggarwal, the company's GMV-to-human resource ratio stands at $1 million annualised GMV per person, which he says is the highest among start-ups in the country. As an example of efficient operations and intelligent use of technology, Aggarwal says his start-up has only three employees in customer support. He aims to touch Rs 250 crore in GMV per customer support employee, by using keywords-based Frequently Asked Questions or use of interactive voice response.

The funds raised will also be used to strengthen its technology base and for overseas operations. It had posted revenues worth Rs 93 lakh in FY15 and a loss of Rs 2.2 crore.

It attracts about three million visitors a month on its website from 145 cities, while 2.5 million people download its mobile app.

Commenting on Droom's transaction-oriented business model, Amit Jain, co-founder and CEO of GirnarSoft, the parent company of CarDekho.com, said worldwide, the classifieds model is the most popular one. According to him, actual transactions hardly happen online.

FACT BOX

Inception: November 2011

Area of business: Marketplace for wellness and fitness trainers

Funding: $6 million in Series-A by Blume Ventures, IDG Ventures & Inventus Capital

Goals: To have five million users on its platform by 2018

EXPERT TAKE

Droom is a vertical online marketplace for trading used vehicles and motorcyles, and related services. Most companies such as CarTrade, Carewale, Cardekho (vertically-focused), Olx, Quikr, etc. (horizontally-focused) operate as listing portals. Whereas Droom focuses on a "transaction model", where it charges a commission on transactions. Since listing is free, getting sellers on its site/app is easier.

However, in India, building a reliable network of used vehicle dealers, and managing and tracking commissions on transaction closures, are difficult and expensive. Droom's success would depend on being able to execute its business plan efficiently. Buying a car is a large ticket decision for customers and having a strong brand is important. Purchase of a vehicle is a once in five years event and hence, it is tougher to create customer loyalty. Due to high cost of advertising and buyout, brand building is an expensive and time-consuming endeavour. Along with e-commerce players, car manufactures such as Mahindra First Choice are vying for a spot in the market. They have strong brand value, deep sector expertise and extensive reach. Hence, ability for Droom to scale rapidly would be critical. Cost of traffic acquisition and conversion is the critical determinant of success. It operates in competitive space and faces strong brands and entrenched players. Cost of customer acquisition is high and customer loyalty is low. AutoTrader.uk, the leading player in England, spends five per cent of its revenues on marketing, whereas Indian firms spend five to eight times as much, that depresses profitability.

Aggressive marketing spends and discounts force firms to incur sustained losses and require large funds to break even. New entrant Droom will have to become differentiated in this crowded space by being innovative, staying focused, and delivering high and sustainable value to the customers to succeed.

So here are the five critical factors that in my view are super important to be a serial entrepreneur:

Perseverance And Resilience

While you are first time entrepreneur or serial, perseverance and resilience are hallmark of success for being an entrepreneur. However, these traits are more important second time or in your subsequent ventures because having gone thru once as an entrepreneur, you can lot many times can see many things before they occur, you may have some time sense of entitlements or you may have your own legacy issues/thinking serving as a big hurdle. Hence, perseverance and resilience are the only way you will come back and come up!

Be Ready To Fall In Love All Over Again

Does not matter, whether you had successful exit or outcome from your last startup or not, the next startup needs all of your love and attention. So if you are unable to move on from your first love, you will likely have issues building a new life with your new startup. This is not practically and emotionally easy but one must move on and fall in love all over again. Every new venture needs 110 percent or your love and attention and it does not matter whether it is first time or 5th time.

Patience

As a serial, you are loaded up with rich experience and grip on so many topics. However, most if not all of your team, may still be doing things first time. It is better to have patience and let them do things and even fail vs. behaving like grandfather or grandmother we and kill the empirical learning and newness for others. So, in my view, one needs to be a bit patience and let everyone graduated on their on from those learning that you likely graduated in your prior venture (s).

Learning From Mistakes

One should become serial entrepreneur only when they can learn from their mistakes, evolve and be ready to make new set of mistakes. If one does not learn from mistakes, then he will likely make same mistakes again and again and likely may not evolve. Startups and investors have lots of tolerance for mistakes but it becomes increasingly less tolerant when you make same mistakes again and again.

Long-Term Approach

It does not matter whether it is your first startup, second time or fifth time, you always need to have long term approach and solve business with innovative approaches, strong fundamentals and build to last type of mindset. In my view, it takes 6-8 years to create from scratch a world-class business and not keeping a long-term approach will only hurt.

The offer is applicable to Droom maintenance packages worth up to Rs 1,999 and can be availed only by users in the cities of Delhi/NCR, Mumbai and Bangalore.

So be it headlight focussing, beam adjustment, wiper blade check & adjustment, air filter check & cleaning, battery check, mud flap check & alignment, self-start &other electrical checks, or a complete shampoo wash and polish, users will have access to a diverse array of maintenance services.

Speaking on the announcement, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom, said, "With our latest Monsoon Package, we are looking to help car owners take care of these issues even before they crop up. The offer underlines Droom's commitment to deliver the best automobile-related services to our users. We are confident that they will welcome our effort to make car ownership much more convenient and value-efficient for them."

The offer, which is currently live on Droom's web and app platforms, is scheduled to run till September 15.

The prime reason behind the increasing popularity of an informal backdrop as a business setting for entrepreneurs is the emergence of the vibrant and energised startup culture. Startups differentiate themselves from larger organisations on the basis of their unconventional approach which revolves around innovation, flexibility and open-ended communication channels. This fosters creativity and fuels hyper growth for startups through greater involvement and better strategy development.

Some people think such informality is detrimental to business. On the contrary, startup people thrive on the randomness, achieving the impossible on a regular basis, even in a high-pressure situation where everything is up in the air. This is why most startups have informal discussions as a major part of their in-house strategy in order to address employee grievances and deliver feedback. Having an informal setup also opens up new feedback channels and leads to better communication between the employer and the employee.

People involved with startups, be it the CEO or an intern, are often too intensively involved with the company, working for long hours and weekend shifts with little leisure time. Going into a formal meeting surrounded by PowerPoint presentations and sombre faces wearing suits after this is nobody’s idea of fun. Informal meetings allow startup professionals to let off steam without affecting the objective of the discussion by integrating fun and business.

Even hiring, for startups, is not conducted within the confines of air-conditioned meeting rooms. It is extremely likely that the interview is conducted over a cup of coffee or brunch which is paid for by the interviewer. This allows candidates to be more relaxed and even instils a sense of belonging and loyalty in the very first meeting. Given how topsy-turvy a startup journey can often get, having people on board who are willing to stick through the thick and the thin becomes very critical, which is why informal meetings are finding such acceptance within the entrepreneurial community.

There is also an element of autonomy and sense of ownership with the people involved with startups. Such self-reliance helps different startup functions to operate efficiently as independent units as well as an integrated, concentrated effort aimed at strengthening the venture. However, this also means that startup professionals do not fit in well within a more formal setting. There have been examples of startup professionals switching jobs when they find their current jobs too rigid, inflexible and reluctant to innovate.

Startups, today, are going beyond boardrooms and encouraging informality to break the monotony to make their meetings more productive. The reason is simple, they believe in open door and transparency. Young entrepreneurs are finding such informal meetings valuable as they are able to gain multiple insights and points-of-view, allowing them to make the best decisions for their businesses and co-workers.

The author is founder of Droom and Shopclues.

One Touch Response and Droom, an online marketplace to buy and sell automobiles, collaborated to step-up the safety quotient of customers and also provide timely on-ground assistance through its ‘Road Side Assistance’ offer that spans Delhi NCR viz., Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon & Faridabad.

Services of One Touch Response (OTR) is accessible via the OTR mobile app (available on iOS, Android and Windows) or on call.

One Touch Response provides on-demand safety and assistance services to users in India whenever they face any real life situation involving personal safety or situations where they require assistance.

Droom is online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and automobile services with a presence on three platforms i.e. Android, iOS and Desktop.

Manoj Chandra, CEO One Touch Response commented, "While there are government agencies to help, there are situations even when these agencies cannot provide you with much help. For instance, if your coming home and your car breaks down, you are unsafe. You may call on 100, but that won’t really help you in that situation because police can’t fix your car. That’s where we come in."

Some of the OTR service offerings include:

● One point contact for any situation which requires safety, protection or assistance, be it – being stranded alone, physical threats, stalking, accidents, road rage, fire, medical situations, car trouble, etc. on the Road or at home/office.

● Dedicated Mobile App for easy and simple access to the service. Automatically tracks and dials the Command & Control Centre while simultaneously sending out an alert with GPS coordinates to the nearest Immediate Assistance Teams. It also alerts your family members automatically.

● 24X7 Command & Control Centre for safety tracking and immediate on call assistance and guidance.

● On-ground Immediate Assistance Teams – verified, professionally trained responders stationed strategically across NCR (Delhi, Noida & Gurgaon).

● Coordination with the nearest external resources i.e. Police, Ambulance Service, Medical Services, Fire, Car Mechanics, Handymen, etc. depending upon the nature of the emergency.

● TrackME service provides regular check-in calls to update; ideal for women when they are travelling alone at odd hours

Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Droom commented, "This collaboration with One Touch increases the bandwidth of our product offerings and aids us in providing more tech-driven automotive solutions for our consumers. We believe One Touch Response’s on-ground assistance services, wide network, and ease of accessibility of the services will be of great value to our customers."

The anecdote, narrated by Droom co-founder Rishab Malik on how they began renting private planes and helicopters in August 2015, is a sign. No longer are chartered flights — both private jets and helicopters, limited to a minute fraction of the Indian populace. As the number of millionaires and billionaires in the country increases, so does the demand for the exotic.

And what is more exotic than celebrating a birthday on a private jet to Goa?

"Yes, it’s a high glamour category, especially for an online aggregator, but we are seeing an increasing demand for such things," observed Malik, when asked whether taking something this niche online actually works.

To be fair, Droom has not managed to sell either of the private jets it has for sale. But what it is selling is around three ‘aerial experience’ packages a month. During peak times, the transaction volume goes up to as much as seven.

Droom is not the only such provider. Kanika Tekriwal’s startup JetSetGo had begun offering chartered flights online. "We wanted to ensure people with diverse financial backgrounds have the option to travel by private jet," said Tekriwal, founder of JetSetGo, during the launch of its JetSteals program. JetSteals has prices ranging from Rs 4,600 to Rs 45,000 and allows passengers to book seats on private jets to regions in India that commercial flights do not take.

There are a few others, including some established charter operators, but Droom seems to have hit on a segment no one else has paid much attention to — once in a lifetime experiences. Apart from the normal business and political travellers, Droom is offering those with the moolah aerial birthday parties, bachelor and bachelorette parties and even joyrides.

"Weddings and parties are huge sells. For example, we had people who hired a Falcon 600, which seats around 15 to 16, for a wedding. It cost them around Rs 7.5 lakhs for 3.5 hours," pointed out Malik.

The pricing varies widely, depending upon the duration, the distance and the number of people. But the destination and airport handling charges also play a vital role in pricing. Right now, a short stint on a helicopter can cost up to Rs 2 - 3 lakh. A private jet can cost up to Rs 5 - 7 lakh.

But for one time experiences, people are not too stingy. Ashwin Ram, from Chennai, threw a bachelor party before his wedding in May that cost him around Rs 1.5 lakh. "If it gets me an experience that people talk about for a while, I wouldn’t have minded spending a lakh or so more," he said .

Partying aside, another major source of revenue for online chartered flight aggregators are pilgrimages. "There are people who go to pilgrimages where the only option to fly to is hours away. But there are small airstrips and airports that can handle small planes that are closer. Developing them could boost both charter operators and regional connectivity," said Amber Dubey, Partner, Aerospace and Defence, KPMG.

The entire segment is growing anywhere between 15 per cent and 25 per cent depending on who you ask and if the National Civil Aviation Policy succeeds in overhauling the hundreds of unused small airports in the country, charters and online providers of charter services might well graduate from providing niche services to catering to less serviced locations.

Until then, you can always party on your own private jet. For just about Rs 3 lakh.

However, couples founding startups isn’t as counter-intuitive. Those who have tied the double knot say running a startup is somewhat akin to ensuring a successful marriage – commitment, trust and shared goals are necessary in both.

"In my portfolio, there are several ‘couple co-founders’, either real-life couples or a male-female combination. For example, Naturally Yours is steered by a husband-wife duo. Mech Mocha, which recently got funded by Flipkart and Blume Ventures, is another one," said Sanjay Mehta, an angel investor, in a recent interview to Techcircle.

Yoga remains one of the oldest activity humans have been following and the numbers of people practicing have only increased with years. Even the most accomplished ones make time for yoga in their busy lives, and yogis like Baba Ramdev have become a true yogapreneur with his successful ayurvedic business ‘Patanjali’.

We asked some entrepreneurs how yoga has been helpful in their entrepreneurial journey.

Yoga is a way of life

Year 2010 was the stepping stone for Dr. Smita Gautam when she founded Health First to demystify homeopathy and yoga making it accessible for everyone particularly people suffering from life challenging or life style diseases to experience how complementary therapies namely homeopathy and yoga can change the way of life supplementing with modern medicine.

Smita shares, "We believe Yoga is a way of life and does not comprise of only physical culture, as generally understood. Our practical applications of yogic ideals in daily life include the simple philosophies behind the techniques of yoga that contributes to better living."

She is a pioneer in therapeutic yoga that means one-to-one approach for individual specific conditions and purposes with a specific focus on health and healing.

You need an expert

Mr.Sujayath Ali, Co-Founder of Voonik believes yoga is an art and it should be done with the right training. he stresses on the importance of getting a trainer. He says, "I think yoga is a holistic practice for both body and mind. I try to get up early to include a bit of Yoga to make my days productive. A couple of breathing exercises give me the right balance and clarity of thought. But I also believe that to get full benefit of Yoga, one should get a good trainer. Done right Yoga can be one of the most powerful workouts, so you need an expert who understands your body and can help you with the right asanas and breathing exercises, to achieve any of your health goals such as weight loss, increase in strength, flexibility and more."

Takes care of exercise and stress

Umang Srivastava, JMD at Bonita India says yoga has given him the flexibility and ease no other practice has. He says, "Any lifestyle disease or condition, whether it is diabetes or heart disease, is aggravated by the poor lifestyle we lead. The lack of exercise, a poor diet, and stress are the major reasons for the onset of these diseases, and consequently, for their worsening condition. Yoga, I find, takes care of two of these three aspects: exercise and stress."

"The good thing about yoga is the flexibility it gives me. I can do it either in the morning or evening, or sometimes, at both times. I can use it to energize in the morning, and to calm my mind as I wind down for the day. As I travel frequently, it doesn't need me to carry any fancy equipment so I can do it in a hotel room, in a garden, or even on my living room floor. However, it is not a quick-fix. A yoga practice takes time to cultivate and to get attuned to, and thankfully, this is something I have been able to do, over the years regularly as an integral part of my life," he added.

It’s about discovering your true self

Internationally certified in Yoga Training, Dimple has been an athlete all her life. She is a regular practitioner of not just yoga but other sports as well. She says,

"Yoga is not just asanas practice , it is about self-discipline, devotion , dedication to life…. It’s about discovering your true self , about connecting with the universal divine forces - Journey to Self and beyond."

In an interview in the Entrepreneur Magazine April Edition, Dimple talked about her athletic life and said, "I have always been athletic ever since I can remember. All thanks to my mother, she got me to learn everything from classical dance, music, basketball to tennis. From a very young age of five-six years, I kept swapping between basketball, swimming, cycling, tennis and skating. Post-school, I started with weight training, kickboxing and yoga that I practice every day religiously till date. However, whenever I get a chance I swim, ride a bike (cycle), play tennis or go for a run. My own potential surprises me beyond limits – every day I beat myself, every day I am better and stronger than before, every day I can do something that seemed impossible before. In a nutshell, every session is a story by itself that touches me or enlightens me in one way or the other."

It is a powerful tool of healing

Mr. Manoj Agarwal, Co-Founder of Giftxoxo says, "Yoga for me is beyond exercise, it is a way of life which takes us to health and peace. It has helped me in exploring my inner self and have a positive perspective outwards. I have been an active believer and practitioner of Yoga for almost 10 years now. It is a powerful tool of healing and transformation gifted by our land to the world.''

Until then, you can always party on your own private jet. For just about Rs 3 lakh.

Yoga is the exercise of the soul

Co-founder and CEO of YourDOST Richa Singh is a regular practioner of Yoga and considers it as a great method to effectively reduce stress at the workplace. She says,"To me, yoga is the exercise of the soul which helps me become the best version of myself."

Yoga is the most powerful gift from India to the world.

Mr. Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO - Droom says, "Yoga has helped me tremendously. In the beginning of 2016, I would frequently feel burnt out as I used to work 18-19 hours per day. Then I started practicing yoga and it increased my energy and concentration levels manifolds. I was so satisfied with my experience that I rolled it out at Droom also, wherein a yoga instructor comes to the office certain times a month and all Droomers can participate in a professional yoga session. While I still do not practice yoga as much as I would like to, I believe that the benefits far exceed the time spend. I strongly believe that Yoga is the most powerful gift from India to the world."

This is where a pitch deck gains relevance. By giving potential investors insights into your plan, your product and your future vision with a couple of PowerPoint slides, a pitch deck can convince them that your product and business is worth investing in and help you seal the deal. However, while creating an investor pitch deck, care must be taken to ensure that you don’t make the following mistakes while presenting your ideas to investors:

Too Little, Too Less

To invest into a venture, an investor needs to a fair amount of knowledge about the company, the product and the team associated with it. If the information given is deemed inadequate, a potential investor might choose to err at the side of caution and pull out from the funding drive. Giving out enough information therefore becomes necessary for start-ups to secure their investments.

Too Much Information, Literally

While giving adequate information about the start-up to potential investors is something that should be aspired for, there can often be instances where entrepreneurs tend to overcompensate and give out too much information all at once with verbose text and multiple slides. This information overload can put off potential investors. As such, you must take care to ensure that each slide is concise and talks precisely about the objectives in hand. Using pie charts and graphs to represent textual information in easy-to-decipher pictorial form can also help in keeping the pitch crisp and to the point but make sure you don’t overdo it.

The Great Unbalancing Act

It is crucial to have a well-balanced team in order to sustain any company. In start-ups, which generally operate on lean teams and shoestring budgets, it becomes even more vital to find the right balance of talent. Investors often invest as much in the team as they do in the idea. However, many a time, entrepreneurs bring in too many individuals on an advisory or freelance role instead of building a proper team. While this dependence on advisors may help start-ups save money in the short run, it can also put investors off by giving an impression of instability and potentially undo the good work done by the venture.

Counting Your Chickens Before They Hatch

Imagine a scenario where you’re in talks with a set of investors and are quite confident in securing investments from them. Because it is almost a done deal, you add these names in your next pitch to different investors to add more weight to your proposal. But if you think this is a sound idea, think again. The investment community is a tightly-knit community in which news travels fast. Putting in names before you’ve signed the dotted line not only hits your credibility with future investors, but might also strain your relationships with the existing ones. And let us not even talk about the PR disaster that might ensue should these ‘sure-shot’ investors pull out at the last moment.

A similar approach must be followed while representing team strength. Only talk about people you have on board instead of boasting about those that can potentially join you. This could end up undermining your investment pitch instead of strengthening it.

Overselling Aggressive Expansion Plans

Aiming to achieve your business goals is good but overselling that aim to the investor might lead to challenges later on in your growth journey. While you may have a business idea that may evolve with time into many independent business verticals, whenever pitching your idea’s future, you must break the long term mission into smaller, more achievable short-term goals. This will help in setting more realistic expectations with the investor and can help you in securing the funds you need.

Lack Of A Focussed Approach

Do not try to impress your investors with a pitch deck that promises more alacrity than action. It is good to have realistic goals which you are confident of achieving within pre-meditated timelines. Overcrowding your growth plans with tangential targets that may lack relevance to your actual business, will mean spreading yourself thin on the credibility margins. Offering too many ideas in one go might give the impression of an uncertain approach to the investors, who may then hold back funds.

Making Misleading Or False Claims

As an entrepreneur, you must always be honest and precise with the information you present, especially to the investors. While inflating the numbers a little or presenting them in a different light might appeal to you when trying to secure a much-needed investment, this can also put investors off from funding your venture and can also damage your credibility as an entrepreneur. Therefore, adequate care must be taken to ensure that all numbers, facts and data incorporated in your pitch must not be false or misleading.

Not Showing Enough Commitment As Founder

Being a founder is a great responsibility which requires you to be passionate about your venture and be committed to all aspects of its business. This must also reflect through in your investment pitch. Having a passive pitch might create a negative impression in the minds of the investors and decrease your chances of securing an investment.

Talking About Alternate Business Plans

While you may think that adding information about the success of your previous business ventures might add greater impact to your investment pitch, the reality could end up being quite different. The pitch deck is created to showcase the game-plan of your start-up. Therefore, you must avoid putting in too many details of your other ventures and focus on the positives of the start-up you’re pitching to the investors.

A Lack Of Ambition

Investors need to see quality as well as ambition in your plans. Showing bleak or no plans for future expansion can be interpreted as a lack of ambition. It is therefore important to chart out an elaborate growth plan for at least a couple of years down the line. This will depict the stability of your business and a desire to grow as an organisation.

Note from Inc42: The views and opinions expressed in guest posts are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views held by Inc42, its creators or employees. If you find yourself violently disagreeing with something and want to educate the world, please contact us about writing a guest post of your own providing the opposite side of the issue. Inc42 is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the guest bloggers.

"In 2010 India had created only about $3 billion in Internet wealth and in 2015 it was $35 billion. In my view, by 2018 it will be $100 billion and by 2020 we should be hitting $250 billion. Nowhere in the world would you find an opportunity like this and digital revolution in the country is no less than the industrial revolution in Europe, the rise of America after World War 1, rise of Japan after World War 2, the automobile revolution in Detroit and the rise of the Internet in the US and China. These are broad six to seven man made opportunities to create wealth and social transformation," says Aggarwal.

Aggarwal, a second-time entrepreneur, finalized the idea to start Droom in April 2014. "I looked at a lot of ideas, but finally settled on Droom because India is the third largest automobile market in the world and an online marketplace to buy used automobiles made sense. We finally launched Droom on November 21, 2014, a date which is important to me since I had started ShopClues on the same date three years before," says Aggarwal. Since then, Droom has expanded to 15 categories, which include bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, cars, luxury cars, super bikes, and even planes and helicopters. "We did not want to be limited to automobiles and expanded to automobile services," says Aggarwal.

Business has been brisk for Droom as Aggarwal was recently said the company has 47,000 B2C sellers on board, 55,000 listings and its annualized GMV at the end of April was at $160 million. Aggarwal says the company is now targeting gross merchandise sales of $10 billion by 2020.

Explaining how the company makes money, Co-founder and VP, Business Development, Rishab Malik says Droom charges a commission on everything sold on Droom. "A two-wheeler has a commission of 2 %, a car has 1.5 % of the value of the transaction and depending on the category the commission rate changes. We also have a services business that includes auto inspection, car-care and detailing, road-side assistance among others and in this business we make about 12% commission. Most of our business comes from commission on selling cars and bikes, but another revenue avenue for us has been in the form of advertisement from automobile and financial services companies," says Malik.

At a time when most companies are struggling to raise money, Droom's business has seen validation from investors in the latest funding round. The Series B round of equity financing has been led by Singapore-based investor Beenext, who has also backed ShopClues.

"If you are an entrepreneur, you should see an opportunity the size of a Mount Everest when others regard it as a pebble. Never jump into the entrepreneurial bandwagon simply because it is glamorous and you want to be your own boss. Being an entrepreneur is one of the toughest jobs in the world and is lonely and draining," says Aggarwal.

"The Road Side Assistance offer can be purchased exclusively on Droom’s website, and will be applicable across locations in Delhi NCR viz., Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon and Faridabad. Services of One Touch Response (OTR) is accessible via the OTR mobile app (available on iOS, Android and Windows) or on call.

Under the Road Side Assistance package, the customers can buy a yearly subscription for Rs. 1499. The subscriber can extend this service to one of his family members for free. The subscribers can avail the services 24X7 for situations like road rage, accidents, stranded without safe transport, car breakdown, stolen vehicle or accident. Depending on the nature of emergency, OTR would also provide emergency fuel assistance, jump start, flat tyre change, key retrieval, tow truck and mechanic provision, on-call cab and ambulance service by coordinating with its empaneled service partners at a negotiated fee.

Moreover, upon activation of the package, the primary user would also be eligible for Personal Accident Insurance worth Rs. 50,000 for 12 months. The subscribers would also get unlimited TrackME services (On-Demand Live Tracking and Monitoring of Personal Safety while travelling alone, at wee hours or through unsafe locations).

Talking about the association, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Droom commented, "Utilising our disruptive mobile-first approach, we have firmly established ourselves as a forerunner in the online automobile segment in India. This latest collaboration with One Touch increases the bandwidth of our product offerings and aids us in providing more tech-driven automotive solutions for our consumers. We believe One Touch Response’s unparalleled on-ground assistance services, wide network, and ease of accessibility of the services will be of great value to our customers." Arvind Khanna, Founder, One Touch Response says, "We are delighted to be in an exclusive partnership with Droom and make our services available to their customers. Droom has revolutionised the automobile market in India and I am confident that our joint offering through this tie-up will be valued by their customers and bring further traction to both OTR and Droom."

Immediate on-call assistance is available within seconds of a user raising an alarm. While the Incident Managers at the OTR Command & Control Centre are hand holding the user during the crisis over the phone, OTR’s on-ground physical support teams called Immediate Assistance Teams (IATs) are alerted to reach the subscriber within minutes. IATs then remain with the user till the emergency is resolved. Depending on the nature of the emergency, OTR’s extensive database of emergency service providers enables it to address all sorts of emergencies in a swift and responsible manner.

The proceedings from the auction will go to a charity chosen by the OnePlus community through voting on the Forums. Vikas Agarwal, General Manager added that "We are excited by the response from the OnePlus community to our latest flagship. Through this unique smartphone auction, we want to offer our loyal fans an opportunity to get their hands on the first few OnePlus 3 smartphones in the country, even before it goes on sale while also contributing to the society."

There will be a special gift attached to the first devices which has not been revealed yet. To participate in the auction the bidders should head over to the Droom website and register themselves. Bidding will start from Rs 1 with no cap to the final price with each bid increasing the price by Rs 5. There will be a live leaderboard of top 10 bids in real time and top 5 will be sent links to purchase phones they bid for immediately after the auction closes. The devices will be delivered after the global launch on 14 June.

Droom, the online marketplace for used automobiles started by Shopclues founder Sandeep Aggarwal, is set to launch new vehicle category by September this year. The company, which has set an annualised GMV target of R3,500 crore for FY 17, also plans to expand its presence in South-East Asian countries by November this year.

Speaking to FE, Sandeep Aggarwal, founder of Droom Technologies said, "So far, we are operating only in the used-vehicle category and have become the largest online automobile marketplace. We will be introducing the new-vehicle category shortly (by September) and will have tie-ups with the manufacturers and dealers."

"However, our focus will remain in the used-vehicle category and we do not expect the new-vehicle segment to overtake our existing business. The margins are infact higher for used-vehicle category, wherein, the commission goes up to 12%. in the new-vehicle category, it is just about 3%," Aggarwal said.

Droom offers B2B, B2C and C2C marketplace option with fixed price, auctions and best offer selling formats. Last month, the company secured $200 million in funding led by Singapore-based investor Beenext and Japanese incubator and venture capital firm Digital Garage. The company had earlier raised $16 million in 2015 from Lightbox Ventures.

According to the company, the funds raised will be used to strengthen its technology and for overseas operations. In FY15, the company posted revenues of R93 lakh and loss of R2.2 crore. The company says it recorded R800 crore as GMV at the end of March 2016.

"We have double our business until April. In May we touched R80 crore in revenues. We are well ahead of our target and 25% of the funds raised will be earmarked for international expansion. By November we will start with Indonesia and further expand to Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand," Aggarwal said.

The USP of Droom is the luxury car sales, which, the company says is growing faster than all other categories. The company also lists choppers and flight on its platform for sale and rentals.

"Luxury car segment is shaping up very well. At least we have registered R100 crore worth of business in this segment. While, no one has purchased planes on our platform yet, we have two dozen plane rentals and the demand comes from rich families, political parties and corporates in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Bengaluru," Aggarwal said.

Last year around 3.5 million used cars were sold in India and a recent Crisil study has forecast that the sales of used cars will reach around 8 million units by 2020. The used car market is growing at 20-22% CAGR and the market is currently valued at $15 billion.

New Delhi: Online marketplace for pre-owned automobiles Droom, run by Droom Technology Pvt. Ltd, has raised an undisclosed amount in Series B round led by Singapore-based early stage technology fund Beenext and Japan’s start-up investment and incubation firm Digital Garage, the company said on Wednesday.

Existing investors, including venture capital firm Lightbox and Beenos besides a few new and undisclosed Japanese and Chinese institutional investors, also participated in the round.

The company, which has raised close to $20 million until now, is believed to have raised about $25-$35 million in the current round, taking its valuation to around $200 million, according to three people aware of the development.

Droom declined to comment on the funding round or the valuation.

Droom was started by Sandeep Aggarwal in 2014, after he quit ShopClues, the e-commerce marketplace which he founded, in 2013 when he was arrested for insider trading in the US.

Droom will use the money to scale its operations within the country and also expand overseas. It will also expand its team and enhance its technology platform.

It targets to expand to 200 cities by 2017. The company expects to launch its international operations in Indonesia by October, to be followed by launch in Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines.

Singapore-based Droom last raised Rs.100 crore in July 2015 in a round led by Lightbox.

"India is the third largest automobile market after China and the US. It is a $125 billion industry with roughly $60 billion new and $40 billion used (automobile) and $25 billion of services like auto loan insurances, warranty, road side assistance inspection etc. And as per our estimate, 0.3% is online. We think this market will grow from $125 billion to $250 billion by 2020 and 0.3% will become 8%," said Aggarwal.

Droom, currently has 47,000 business-to-customer sellers (B2C), 23,600 products and 57,000 listings on its platform. It claims it had 3,500 transactions in April.

Currently, the company is doing $160 million in annualized run rate of gross merchandise value (GMV or cost of goods sold) and targets that number to grow to $500 million by March 2017.

The company which has so far been selling used automobiles also plans to enter into a new automobile category and will launch the same in July. The segment will allow OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to have their own brand stores where they can have videos, brochures and announcements. They will also be able to offer extended test drive to customers.

Droom currently gets 65% of its orders from the two-wheeler segment, 30% from car and the rest from services. The average ticket size in the scooters category is ₹40,000 and ₹68,000 in motorcycles category. In the cars segment, the price ranges around ₹3.5 lakh.

The company is an end-to-end marketplace for selling used automobiles across categories such as car, bike, scooter, bicycles, super bikes, supercars, vintage scooters etc. Besides these, it also offers auto inspection, warranty, roadside assistance, rentals and services and repairs.

However, over 95% of its business currently comes from sale of second-hand vehicles. The company acts as a platform for buyers and sellers to connect and charges anywhere from 1.5%-2.5% commission on every transaction.

It plans to introduce two new products in the next two to five months to add more revenue streams. "We are working on a vehicle history database that will allow consumers to check records of any vehicle from the time it is manufactured to end of life. We are building our own database by reaching out to OEMs, police and other large repositories that store this information," said Aggarwal.

It is also working on a financial product where in consumers will get access to insurance and loans on Droom’s platform.

The company competes with Girnar Software Pvt. Ltd run Cardekho which also raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Google Capital, a late-stage growth venture capital firm and existing investor Hillhouse Capital in March. Another firm Cartrade (MXC solutions Pvt. Ltd) last raised $145 million from Singapore state investment firm Temasek Holdings, US-based March Capital and existing investor Warburg Pincus in January.

Lightbox and Beenos Partners, which both participated in Droom’s $16 million Series A last year, also returned for this round. Droom currently claims a total of 3,500 transactions are completed every month on its marketplace and that it makes $160 million in annualized gross merchandise volume.

Part of Droom’s Series B will be used to expand into Southeast Asia. The company plans to be in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand by the end of this year.

Droom head Sandeep Aggarwal also founded e-commerce marketplace ShopClues, which claimed unicorn valuation earlier this year and is now planning an initial public offering. Aggarwal left ShopClues in 2013 after the Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating him for insider trading (he later pled guilty in a plea bargain).

For his re-entrance into the startup world, Aggarwal tells TechCrunch he picked secondhand vehicles because it is one of the fastest-growing markets in India. Aggarwal says that there are 1.3 used vehicles sold for every new one in India and that he believes that ratio will increase to 2:1 by the end of next year.

Demand for secondhand vehicles is fueled by growing purchasing power among consumers as India’s economy grows. Indian car owners tend to upgrade their vehicles more often than their counterparts in other countries as their income grows, adds Aggarwal.

"What is driving demand is aspirational value as education and income levels rise. Someone who does not have a vehicle might start with a used car that is a hatchback, then a sedan, then a mid-size sedan, then a luxury car," he says.

Droom competes against classifieds site OLX, as well as other used car platforms like CarTrade and CarDekho.

Aggarwal says Droom differentiates by using data science to create alternatives to the Kelley Blue Book and CarFax’s vehicle history reports, which are invaluable for secondhand car buyers in the U.S., but don’t exist in India. For example, Droom automatically rates individual listings on a scale of 1 to 10, depending on how much information, documentation, and detailed photos it includes, and also operates an on-demand inspection service called ECO.

While Droom declined to share the amount raised in the latest funding round, it is understood to have raised around $30 million led by Singapore’s BEENext and Japan-based Digital Garage. Of the total funds raised in the round, the company has earmarked almost 25 per cent for its international expansion. It is also eyeing a couple of acquisitions to help strengthen its operations.

Founded in 2014 in Sillicon Valley, Droom is incorporated in Singapore with offices in Gurgaon and Sillicon Valley. It distinguishes itself from the other auto classifieds websites by claiming to be a trade enabler and rather than adopting a lead-based model.

In an interview with DEALSTREETASIA, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of Droom, shares the company’s plans for international expansion and to acquire companies to strengthen its operations. Aggarwal is also the co-founder of one of the leading Indian e-commerce portals ShopClues.

Edited excerpts:

Can you please elaborate on your plans to foray into the overseas market?

India is the third largest automobile market in the world, so we wanted to make sure that we got India right before we expanded internationally. Later this year we would like to expand to the southeast Asian countries like Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand.

We will go in a phased manner, one country at a time starting with Indonesia. Then we will go one by one into other countries. We think what we are building has a global appeal. Last six months, we have been spending time doing market research, sizing, competition, market mapping of these six countries and the last three months we have been making a lot of changes to our technology, to make it more geography agnostic.

Will you deploy the current model that you have in India to the other countries as well?

Yes, like Uber or Airbnb or Tinder, these companies are present internationally but physically have a very lean presence. We are going to have a very similar model. We will have small teams in each country, probably one or two people in catalogue, one in business development, one in marketing and one in support. A four-five people team in each country is how we will expand.

Would you be interested in any kind of inorganic expansion?

This year we will be acquisitive, we will be acquiring companies. However, we will not be acquiring companies for geographic expansion. We will be acquiring companies for technology or for access to different categories or talent. For geography, we would like to expand organically.

Will these be Indian companies? Are you already in talks?

Yes, we are looking at Indian companies. We are constantly evaluating, we think this year we will be acquiring a couple of companies.

Are there any kind of gaps that you are looking to bridge?

It’s not gaps. There are three key areas for example if someone has done any work for pricing algorithm, someone who has aggregated the automobile services such as auto loans, insurance, warranty, or someone for talent acquisition. We will not acquire a company for revenue or geographical presence.

What sized acquisitions are you looking at?

We have a very strong culture, a very Silicon Valley-styled startup. So, we will clearly not acquire a very large sized company, where we can have an issue with cultural assimilation. We are thinking or small to medium sized companies.

Are you already in talks with companies for acquisitions?

Our team has been looking at various companies for acquisition in the last few months.

Have you earmarked any kind of investment for overseas expansion?

For overseas expansion, we don’t need too much of capital but we are earmarking roughly 25 per cent of the total funds raised in this latest Series B round for international expansion.

Would you look at separate portals for each country? Or regional languages?

We would operate in countries where internet is primarily in English. Each country will have it’s own app and website. So in India if it’s droom.in then hopefully in Singapore it will be droom.sg and so on, whatever is available.

By when will you start your overseas expansion, and by when do you think you would have these countries covered?

We have planned that by Q4 2016 to Q2 2017, we should be nicely available in entire southeast Asia.

What kind of revenue split are you looking at once you start international operations?

In calendar year 2017, we expect 15 per cent of our total revenue to come from international operations. By 2019, international revenues should account for 35 per cent of our revenue and by 2020, more than 50 per cent of our revenues should come from there.

Your final goal is to establish a global company? Are you looking at more countries for expansion beyond Southeast Asia?

Yes, if everything goes well, then in by second half of 2017 we will be in western Europe and in the first half of 2018 we will be in North America.

Europe and North America being developed markets, would have more competition?

The products we are building have global appeal, trust, transparency, pricing, convenience are the need for buyers and sellers. Some places trust has a high deficit and in some places convenience has a high deficit, but the tools we have built are truly global./

You have spoken about going beyond being an automobile marketplace, what are the other models you are looking at?

Beyond automobiles would be automobile services, and rental of services like renting a yacht, aeroplane, helicopter and luxury cars.

Would you want to get into cab rentals or self drive services?

There are a lot of companies for those like Uber and Ola, and we don’t want to compete with them. They have done a great job, but some of the vehicles that are less accessible we are a rental market place for them.

For your overseas expansion are you going to offer your whole portfolio of offerings?

Our core market will remain two-wheeler and four-wheelers, so every new region we expand into we will expand with our core offering. In the countries where two-wheelers are a bigger market than four-wheelers we will start with two-wheelers.

How do you view competition in the international markets?

In China and North America there is significant competition, but in other geographies its not as much.

You run on healthy margins in India right now, how will your international expansion impact those?

Margins will actually be higher. While we have a high gross margin, we charge very little, we charge 1.5 per cent for cars and 2.5 per cent for two-wheelers. In China and US, automobile market places are charging between 5-8 per cent. So when we go to those markets we can participate on much higher margins.

Does that give you pricing advantage as well?

Yes, that can probably help us to gain traction.

While Sandeep Aggarwal , chief executive of Droom, declined to confirm the valuation of the Singapore-headquartered company, post the latest round, the deal is believed to have valued Droom at between $210 million and $240 million, according to sources with direct knowledge of the transaction.

Also, entering the company's investor cap table is Hong Kong-based investment company, Integrated Asset Management, which, in 2014, led the buyout of media conglomerate Forbes Group , according to the sources mentioned above.

Other investors in the round include a group of prominent Japanese and Indonesian family offices.

"Droom has swiftly established its leadership position as the premium digital marketplace to buy and sell automobiles in India. Sandeep is an exceptional founder and his vision, grip on marketplaces and ability to drive innovations are second to none," said Teruhide Sato, managing partner, Beenext.

This follows the Rs 100 crore raised by the company from venture capital firm Lightbox and Beenos in July 2015, and which was first reported by ET. The existing backers have also participated in the latest round, which closed earlier this month.

"We will be using the proceeds to expand outside Indian borders, particularly in South-east Asia, invest further in our technology, and ramp up our engineering teams," Aggarwal, who had also founded online marketplace ShopClues , told ET.

"The single biggest problem anyone faces when buying an used vehicle in India is the lack of transparency in the transaction - in everything from pricing to the vehicle's condition. Droom is the only company in India solving for this problem. And it's one of the few companies in the world solving for it purely through technology. That's the vision Lightbox backed in the beginning and it's so exciting to see how quickly the model has been validated," said Sid Talwar , partner at Lightbox.

The transaction also comes at a time when mid and growth-stage venture capital investors have significantly tightened their purse strings, as they force their portfolio companies to cut down their burn rates, trim their flab, and renew their focus on bottom-lines.

According to data collated by VCCEdge, the first quarter of the current calendar year has seen an 80% fall in venture capital funding in value terms, compared to the year ago period. Additionally, exit valuations have plunged to 15-quarter low, and deal values have fallen by 70% from $1.7 billion in Q1CY15 to $508 million in the same period.

The company, according to Aggarwal, which claims to have 47,000 B2C sellers on board, and 55,000 listings, is targeting gross merchandise sales of $10 billion by 2020. It's annualised GMV at the end of April was at $160 million, according to the founder.

"Unlike most e-commerce companies, we're in a high gross margin business. Almost 100% of the money we make goes into our margins. While most e-commerce companies spend around 17-20% of their GMV on marketing, ours is around 5%", Aggarwal said.

Droom claims to have a burn rate of 5.5% of its GMV and a gross margin of 98.4%. The company's annualized GMV stands at $160 mn.

India's automobile market is currently the fifth largest in the world, and pegged at $125 bn. Its expected to grow up to $250 bn by 2020.

The funds will be used for its planned expansion into southeast Asia later this year apart from strengthening its platform and presence in India.

"We are still operating at the floor in India. There is a huge untapped market here, so we want to strengthen our position here first," said Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal, adding that company was looking for an overseas foray by November. It is targeting markets such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

"We are still operating at the floor in India. There is a huge untapped market here, so we want to strengthen our position here first," said Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal, adding that company was looking for an overseas foray by November. It is targeting markets such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Prior to this round, the company raised $16 million in three rounds including two tranches of seed funding.

Founded in April 2014, Droom is a marketplace for new and used automobiles and services. It competes with Mumbai-based CarTrade, which raised $142 million in January from Temasek and March Capital.

Existing investors, Lightbox Ventures and Beenos, also participated in the latest round along with new institutional investors from China and Japan, Droom founder Sandeep Aggarwal said, at a media conference.

While the size of the deal was not disclosed, earlier news reports had said the company was in talks to raise around Rs 200 crore ($30 million).

"The amount raised is significantly higher than the Series A that Droom raised in July 2015," Aggarwal said.

Beenext, founded by Japanese e-commerce entrepreneur and investor Teruhide Sato last year, has invested from its $60-million fund. The firm will be investing half of that amount into Indian startups.

However, according to sources, Droom has raised nearly Rs 200 crore in this round of funding.

The company will use the proceeds of the Series B funding to expand its domestic operations and strengthen its technology platform.

"The amount raised for the new round of funding is significantly higher than Series A that we raised last year," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told reporters here. He declined to comment on the funding raised and the valuation of the company.

Previously, Droom has raised seed funding of $1.5 million and $4 million in May and October 2014, respectively, followed by Series A round of Rs 100 crore in June last year.

Droom, which holds no inventory itself, facilitates sale of new and used cars and two-wheelers and also offers services through its platform. It has listings from across 142 cities in India.

The company will expand its operations to Indonesia in the third quarter of the fiscal, followed by other countries like Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore, Aggarwal told.

"These markets put together are smaller than India but present a huge opportunity as these are underpenetrated. We expect about 15 per cent of our gross annualised revenue run rate to come from international operations by December 2017," he said.

On the Indian market, Aggarwal said that about 0.3% of the $125 billion auto market in India is online.

"India would remain the large part of our business. Currently, our gross annualised revenue run rate is about Rs 1,000 crore, which we expect will touch Rs 3,000-3,500 crore by March 2017," he said.

The company is looking at expanding its presence to 250 cities by March 2017, he added.

Droom is also looking at hiring about 90 people to strengthen its product and engineering operations as well as for managing international operations.

"By March next year, we will have about 250 people from the current 160 people. About 50 per cent of these will be for the product and engineering team, while we will have about four-member teams for each country (international operations)," he said.

Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of Droom, a marketplace to buy and sell used cars, shares his views on how the Narendra Modi government has impacted the startup ecosystem in the country in the last 2 years and what more can be done. Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is a startup that came to Gurgaon in 2015, and is funded by some leading global venture investors. Excerpts:

Has the Modi government in general been able to live up to the slogan of "Achhe Din"?

In my view answer is a strong yes. The Modi government has gotten back attention of investors to India, made economic agenda as the top priority for the nation and started support for Digital India and Start Up. Under Modi’s regime, India is being viewed as an economic tiger in making which is yet to achieve its potential. The performance of the $2 trillion-economy is being keenly observed by the world.

The state governments are in sync with the central government to a large level and have launched several reforms and changes that have made it easier to do business in India than ever before. The present growth rate and the momentum also make India one of the fastest growing large economy in the world.

How has Modi's Digital India programme impacted your industry in the last 2 years?

It has done well from the perspective of the government making it a priority and symbolically doing this for a Digital India. There are however, tons of things which need to be done to make capital affordable and accessible followed by removal of redundant taxes to companies listing themselves on Nasdaq.

IT-BPM industry constitutes 8.1 per cent of India’s GDP, adding about $115 billion to $120 billion to the Indian economy. The government now allows 100 per cent FDI under the automatic approval route in and various IT-BPM sub-segments including software development, testing, consultancy, research and analysis services. The government has received proposals worth $1,716 billion from various companies since the launch of the Make in India initiative.

For internet highways, which is the need of the hour for the industry, the government also launched the Digital India initiative, and committed an investment of $70.2 billion to provide telephony and fast internet.

What are some of the key IT-related initiatives that have proven to be a boon for the IT/digital payments sector in India?

Payment wallet and payment banks are supporting financial inclusions. While the PM himself has time and again proved to be extremely tech-savvy, be it his selfies or a super active Twitter account, he has also launched several technology intensive initiatives giving the IT sector in India much to cheer about. We list down some key tech initiatives of the Modi government and track their progress. In his maiden speech at the Red Fort, Narendra Modi emphasized on the importance of technology for bridging the rural-urban divide.

He harped on connectivity and creating "Broadband Highways" of 6 lakh kilometres across the country. One of Modi's pet projects, Digital India aims at providing digital infrastructure as a utility to every citizen as well as high-speed internet as a core utility in all gram panchayats. An overall sum of Rs 2,510 crore had been set aside in the budget for 2015-16 under the head "Digital India Programme and Telecommunications and Electronic Industries". Digital India is a Rs 1.13-lakh crore government initiative that seeks to transform the country into a connected economy.

How do you think Modi's Startup India initiative has benefited the startup ecosystem in the country? Do you think the provisions in the Startup Action Plan meet the requirements of the ecosystem?

Startup India is a flagship initiative of the government of India, intended to build a strong ecosystem for startups in the country. This will drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities. The government, through this initiative aims to empower startups to grow through innovation and design. On the legal support, government has provided support for filing patents at free of cost and 80 per cent reduction in filing patent fee. This action would bring out the confidence among the entrepreneurs to startup with hassle free process.

The relaxation of the financial and labour norms is a great step towards making things simpler for young startups so they can focus on innovation without getting entangled in some of these norms that are more applicable to larger entities. I am extremely excited about the Atal Innovation Mission, this will help foster innovation at a grass root level among students in schools and colleges, which will in turn encourage more youngsters to enter the field of entrepreneurship and innovate and create some ground breaking products that, will be used by people around the world. India is already a leading startup hub.

Over the past few years, the startup ecosystem has witnessed exponential growth within the country. With prime minister Narendra Modi’s direct involvement in promoting startups with ‘Start-up India Stand up India’ initiative, we can expect a positive impact on the ecosystem as well as the economy.

What more should be done by the Modi government in the next few years?

The government should liberalize listing rules, relax capital gains and divide tax, make cost of capital for startup very low and make startup industry less regulatory. On the knowledge and skill enhancement side, our leaders should create MIT and Stanford standard education establishments across the country. Open access to broadband highways would facilitate trade across the country giving boost to e-commerce which is projected to cross $80 billion by 2020 and $300 billion by 2030.

With all this, we also expect last mile internet connectivity giving access to government services and development of IT skills, provision of broadband internet access to 250,000 village clusters by 2019. Digital inclusion to target job creation for approximately 1.7 crore people trained in IT, telecom and electronics, must be focussed on.

Clearly, there's a lot of curiosity around e-commerce. Sandeep Aggarwal, founder of ShopClues and Droom, said that given the right ecosystem, e-commerce offered the chance for a young entrepreneur - one not born with a "silver spoon" in their mouth - to become a local hero, to replicate the American dream in India.

"The industry is likely to generate 2.5 lakh jobs in online retail in 2016-17, and hiring is expected to grow at 60-65 percent. I foresee our young demographic dividend to become much more confident, risk-taking and innovative," Aggarwal pointed out.

But e-commerce in India is still only a small part of the overall market, he maintained, adding the segment will not grow until these marketplaces learn to innovate and look beyond offering discounts and providing, instead, an overall "experience" for the online shopper. "Right now, competition is driven by fear, insecurity and ego, and everyone is trying to outsmart each other."

In a panel discussion, Mohit Ahuja - senior director-marketing, Droom - spoke of how these are early days for the sector in India. "Things aren't very defined at the moment," Ahuja said. Meanwhile, Nitin Kochhar - VP-categories, ShopClues - insisted that delivery of "great" customer experiences depends on merchants being kept happy, while Avinash Parhi - director-categories, ShopClues - stressed that an app-only strategy is likely to backfire.

Also in focus was marketing, and whether new-age or traditional methods work best. But there was unanimous agreement on the fact that web marketplaces need to figure out what sells and understand what the customer wants.

So the takeaways from E-commerce Day were take risks, innovate and learn on the job. The event was attended by management graduates and aspiring entrepreneurs, all eager to tap i nto exciting potential that e-commerce holds. Among the institutions present were Xavier School of Management, Symbiosis Institute of Management, Management Development Institute and IIM.

The event was attended by management graduates and aspiring entrepreneurs which promised to be an interesting and stimulating learning platform for all those passionate about tapping into the unbridled potential of India's e-commerce landscape.

The day-long celebration of E-commerce Day was held at Epicentre and witnessed participation from prestigious academic institutions and colleges such as IIFT, MDI, SIBM, IIM, XLRI and many more.

The agenda of E-commerce Day was to bring together industry veterans like Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder ShopClues and Droom and Sanjay Sethi, Co-founder and CEO ShopClues.com, who shared their valuable insights with the invitees and helped them better chart their own paths to success in this high-growth segment.

The event also shed light on the present state of Indian E-commerce, success strategies and prospective opportunities for career growth. In addition, thought leaders in the domain shared the key challenges ahead of them and their own blueprint to tide over inclement market conditions.

Speaking on the occasion, Founder Shopclues and Droom, Sandeep Aggarwal said, "We are living in an evolution period where our nation is transitioning to become a knowledge society. There is a remarkable transformation in innovation, consumerism, productivity and logistics over the last few years. E-commerce is the catalyst for the Indian populace to embrace the digital and seek enterprising and professional opportunities in this sector."

"The industry is likely to generate 2.5 lakh jobs in online retail in FY16-17 and the hiring is expected to grow at 60-65 per cent. I foresee our young demographic dividend to become much more confident, risk taking, innovative and profound decision makers of tomorrow," added Sandeep.

Speaking on organizing E-Commerce Day, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer ShopClues, Radhika Aggarwal said, "In India, there is much excitement and curiosity around the e-commerce segment and where it is headed. A large clutch of ambitious youngsters are eyeing this sector and are deeming it as the best place for them to realize their full potential."

"As one of India's leading businesses in this space, we have always considered it our responsibility to provide whatever assistance we can to those looking at a career in e-commerce. E-commerce Day not only plays a vital role in educating budding entrepreneurs but it also helps them devise their own strategies for success in the future," added Radhika.

"E-commerce Day is a wonderful opportunity for new and aspiring entrepreneurs to get a dekko into how this space works. By interacting at close quarters with the leading minds of this segment, young students and professionals will be able to truly assess the explosive opportunities that lie in this space and will also be equipped with the requisite knowledge to make the best of those opportunities. There's nothing like a face-to-face interaction with industry veterans for great exposure and learning," said Senior Director Human Resources at ShopClues, Shikha Taneja.

In an earlier edition of E-commerce Day, ShopClues had invited students on its premises to get a first-hand view of how India's leading managed marketplace works. It endeavored to give aspiring e-commerce professionals and entrepreneurs an authentic glimpse at the potential of the realm while also giving them a true picture of the toil one has to put in and the roadblocks one has to encounter.

With a continued dedication to helping the youth of the nation discover what it takes to build a business of value and scale, ShopClues has partnered with Droom for the third edition of this highly successful initiative.

All that is needed to be eligible in this first-of-its-kind, limited time offer is a Facebook account to bid on Droom’s Facebook page.

With over 46,000 B2C sellers, 56,000-plus listings and Rs 2,168 crore in listed gross merchandise value (GMV), the latest initiative by Droom is aimed at celebrating its spectacular success as one of the fastest growing consumer internet companies in the Indian automobile industry.

Speaking on the initiative, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Droom, said, "Droom was established to transform the experience of buying, selling and owning an automobile, making it simpler and more convenient for the country’s consumer. By rolling out our ‘Nail Biting Deal’, we are thanking our users for their support and giving them an opportunity to make the most of our jaw-dropping deals. We are confident that the initiative will provide a highly engaging channel for aspiring owners to fulfil their vehicular requirements."

To participate in this month’s event, one will have to log onto Facebook and visit Droom’s page on May 13 between 11 AM and 6 PM. The auction will start at Rs. 99, while users can use the ‘Bid Now’ call-to-action button to increase the last price by Rs.1.

A minimum of 25 bids will be required to qualify for winning the auction, with the highest bidder taking home a brand new Honda Activa. Droom will announce the winner through its Facebook page shortly after the conclusion of the event.

Droom’s ‘Services & Repairs’ category will have three product types for consumers to choose from – Express Service & Maintenance, Standard Service and Extensive Service.

While the Express Service will have features like Extensive Vehicle Inspection, Wheel Balancing, Wash & Polish, Minor Repairs and Battery Water (top-up), Standard and Extensive services include in-depth vehicle servicing that involves Consumable replacement, Engine Oil Filter replacement, Engine Oil replacement and Brake Fluid replacement. The prices range from Rs350 to Rs18,000 for different services, and come inclusive of labour charges.

"Industry reports predict that nearly 80% people don’t get their vehicles serviced from branded service centres once the free service expires due to higher costs, time crunches and a dearth of quality servicing facilities," says Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom. "The launch of our ‘Services & Repair’ category will enable better savings on costs without compromising on the quality of service for our users. We are initially rolling it out in metropolitan cities, with a view of expanding the service in more cities in due time."

Droom has partnered with leading vehicle servicing vendors such as Cartisan, Pitstop, Carpathy and Garagely to enable its latest category, and is targeting service fulfilment within 2-4 hours once a customer makes an online booking.

The category, which is currently live in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR and Bangalore, will allow Droom users to improve the performance and longevity of their vehicles and reap the benefits of enhanced fuel efficiency and reduced maintenance costs.

Droom's 'Services & Repairs' category will have three product types for consumers to choose from - express service & maintenance, standard service and extensive service.

While the express service will have features like extensive vehicle inspection, wheel balancing, wash & polish, minor repairs and battery water (top-up), standard and extensive services include in-depth vehicle servicing that involves consumable replacement, engine oil filter replacement, engine oil replacement and brake fluid replacement. The prices range from Rs 350 to Rs 18,000 for different services and come inclusive of labour charges.

Speaking on the announcement, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom, said, "Industry reports predict that nearly 80% people don't get their vehicles serviced from branded service centres once the free service expires due to higher costs, time crunches and a dearth of quality servicing facilities. The launch of our 'Services & Repair' category will enable better savings on costs without compromising on the quality of service for our users. We are initially rolling it out in metropolitan cities, with a view of expanding the service in more cities in due time."

Droom has partnered with leading vehicle servicing vendors such as Cartisan, Pitstop, Carpathy and Garagely to enable its latest category, and is targeting service fulfilment within 2-4 hours once a customer makes an online booking. The category, which is currently live in the cities of Mumbai, Delhi-NCR and Bangalore, will allow Droom users to improve the performance and longevity of their vehicles and reap the benefits of enhanced fuel efficiency and reduced maintenance costs.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is India's first online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and automobile services. Droom has taken a completely innovative and disruptive approach to building trust and pricing advantages for buyers.

With this widening business horizon, end-to-end facilitator Droom is all set to raise another up to ₹ 200 crore to fund its expansion plans in six South-East Asian countries and Europe in the next two years.

"We are expanding our marketplace to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippinesthis year, followed by Europe in 2017," Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder-CEO of Droom and ShopClues, told BusinessLine.

Among its various services on offer, Droom charges 1.5% of the price on a successful sale of a car, 2% of the sale price of a two-wheeler and 12% on providing various automobile services like insurance, warranty etc.

From a revenue of nearly ₹ 900 crore from 3,400 transaction in 2015-16, Droom is targeting ₹ 3,000 crore worth of gross revenues by March 2017 and ₹ 15,000 crore by the end of 2018. "With a 12% annual growth,India’s automobile sector is expected to expand from USD 125 billion now to USD 250 billion by 2020. Online transaction in this sector is also expected to increase from 0.5% now to 28% by 2020. We are targeting 50-60% of this business, worth about USD 300 million."

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, technology-driven Droom came to Gurgaon in India in 2015, funded by some leading global venture investors, raising ₹ 230 crore so far. In the last 16 months, it has roped in 41,000 automobile dealers with 1.5 lakh listing of vehicles, having a total value of ₹ 3,500 crore. This mobile marketplace, having no inventory, facilitates buying and selling of new and used automobiles, including two-wheelers, on this one-stop-shop.

Aggarwal said Droom was currently present across 135 cities in India and had the largest geographical footprint in any hyper-local category. "We have about three million visitors per month on our website, and our app has been downloaded by 2.5 million people. We not only facilitate buying of selling, including of vintage cars, we also provide for inspection, car care and detailing, fun rides and rentals, road side assistance, service and repairs, warranty-the whole gamut under one roof for a 21st century experience."

Prior to Droom, a "completely disruptive business", Aggarwal had founded ShopClues.com in his Californiahouse in 2010, and moved to India to launch it as the country’s first marketplace to empower 15 million SMEss and unstructured categories, at a time when other e-commerce companies ran inventory-led models. In 3 years ShopClues rose from being the 35th entrant into Indian e-commerce space to become the 4th largest such company with 50 million monthly visitors. It currently has over 65 million visitors a month and USD 500 million in annual gross merchandise volume (GMV).

Droom, a Singapore-holding company with offices in Silicon Valley, USA and Gurgaon, has grown 125 times since its commercial launch. "Our business model is designed to expand across categories, products, strategic partnerships as well as geographies to increase its reach and offering to consumers", said Aggarwal.

Droom, one of India’s pioneering online automobile transaction platform, is hosting India’s Biggest Bike Mela, offering fabulous deals and discounts to buyers on their web and app platforms. This Mela (fair) is in line with the company’s stated intent of making motorcycle ownership more viable to consumers. During the Mela, which is scheduled to be held over 26 and 27 April, hot deals and discounts are going to be on offer across a range of motorcycle categories, from humble commuters to exotic superbikes.

"Today, Droom has established itself as the transactional platform of choice for both buyers and sellers owing to its emphasis on transparency, convenience and value-addition. With India’s Biggest Bike Mela, we are offering the most popular bike make from verified sellers on our platform at very good discounts, making bike ownership affordable and pocket-friendly for our consumers. We are confident that the campaign will be a big hit with the consumers, who will welcome the diversity of having the widest collection of bikes on sale for heavy discounts," said Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom.

Through the two-day Mela sports bikes such as Bajaj Pulsar, Yamaha R15, Yamaha FZ, Yamaha Fazer, CBZ xtreme and TVS Apache will be available at a discount of Rs 4,500 for a minimum purchase price of Rs 35,000, while Royal Enfield models such as Classic, Standard and Thunderbird can be bought at a slashed price of Rs 12,000 for a minimum price of Rs 1 lakh. A flat discount of Rs 3,500 can be availed for a minimum price of Rs 28,000 for Standard Commuter Bikes such as Hero Passion, Bajaj Discover, Hero Splendor, and Honda CB Shine. Consumers purchasing superbikes from Kawasaki, Yamaha, Hayabusa and Ninja will benefit from a discount of Rs 20,000 for a purchase of Rs 2 lakh. Buyers can freeze their deals by paying a fully refundable token amount on Droom before completing the transaction directly with the vendor after verifying the vehicle.

Sandeep Aggarwal is an angel investor, serial entrepreneur, philanthropist and Internet visionary. In April 2014, Sandeep started Droom, India’s first marketplace to buy and sell used and new automobiles. Droom is a completely disruptive business that is creating unpanelled trust and pricing advantage for buyers. Prior to Droom, Sandeep founded ShopClues.com, India’s first and largest managed marketplace in his house in California in late 2010 and moved to India to launch it as to empower 15 million SME sellers and unstructured categories e.g. fashion, home/kitchen etc. online. Sandeep founded, ShopClues in an era when all the other E-Commerce companies in India were inventory-led models.With 17 years of global experience in business operations, strategy and investment, focusing on Internet and technology and prior to founding Droom and ShopClues, Sandeep was among the most renowned Internet analysts on Wall Street based out of Silicon Valley, providing research coverage on Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon, Netflix, Priceline, Microsoft, MakeyMyTrip etc. Prior to being an analyst Sandeep worked in strategy roles with senior leadership team at Microsoft in Seattle and Schwab.com in San Francisco. Sandeep has an MBA from Washington University in St. Louise, USA. Sandeep is chartered member of TiE Silicon Valley and holds one US patent. In conversation with Dominic Rebello he reflects on the way forward for businesses such as his in India.

What drives you?

I look for attributes with high energy, passion and long-term vision while investing in new ventures. Founders need to be strongly motivated by a cause, as opposed to those driven by quick money, have the vision to identify an addressable opportunity and the clarity of purpose for optimum thematic leverage. I believe technology plays an extremely pivotal role in creating winning ventures, and supports founders who believe in frugality and economic effort as a means to achieve success.

How big is the potential for a business like yours? Any statistics to compare with international standards?

We are the biggest used car transaction platform in India and we want to continue the dominance. Droom, the used car marketplace, is planning to expand to 100 cities within the next month. The company has been ahead of schedule in revenue generation, its founder claimed, adding it was a natural progression. The company recorded revenue of Rs 36 crore in December 2015, with Rs 32 crore coming from the National Capital Region alone.

How do you plan to scale up; raise funds through seed or venture capital or simply grow the old fashioned way through rising turnovers?

Droom has raised $16 million (INR 100 crore) funding in Series A led by Lightbox. The company will use funds to add 20 automobile and 12 service categories hosting over 50,000 sellers and 200k listings in the next 18-24 months. Droom also plans to expand into South East Asia by early 2016. The first round of funding for Droom was led by BEENOS. The recent investment from Lightboxand participation by all of our existing major investors allows us to aggregate the automobile industry at a scale which has not been achieved so far by anyone.

Who would primarily be your consumer audience?

Anyone who is willing to buy or sell an automobile and looking for automobile services is our consumer audience. Basically, we have C2B (consumer to business) marketplace format, called Quicksell, which further enables consumers to sell their used vehicles to auto dealers with a quick turnaround of the transaction. The sellers can upload a quick listing of their vehicles, receive offers from interesting buyers and accept the most feasible option to sell it online. Our audience falls in every category which is B2C, C2B, C2C and several automobile dealers.

Where do you see Droom five years down the road?

We feel droom has built and will continue to build a truly 21st century experience to buy and sell used automobiles online in India. We have opportunity to capture 50%+ of the total automobile market online in India. We are working very hard and believe that by 2020, Droom will be a global name and will be operating in 3 to 4 continents and in 15-20 countries.

Driven by the humongous growth of mobile-only Internet users, mobile wallet is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for all monetary transactions, because of its varied offers and convenience. Not only mobility, but the other technological breakthroughs which include cloud computing, Big Data and open source technologies are now the enabling centerpieces of a successful business. The rapid growth has also compelled the industries to outrun others and automobile domain is no different. While the Indian automobile realm has been hovering around the global market as the third largest, the growth is also fraught with several challenges in it fold.

However enticing a technology be, its complexity can often serve as a hindrance. They have to be robust, yet scalable and easy-to-use. In addition, India - bound by the old-fangled thinking and the increasing scams - is relatively a low-trust market, which makes the task of establishing a business tougher. Especially in e-Commerce domains like used and new car markets, which strives to eliminate the middlemen and craft a paramount transactional experience, people tend to demur in buying a vehicle from an unfamiliar individual, despite e-Commerce's capability in bestowing a better experience with its return and refund policies.

Further, the risk is accompanied by the meager policies, unlike in U.S., where they have Lemon Law to compensate for the defective consumer goods, Kelly Blue Book for the best pricing, a separate vendor for inspecting vehicle history and tighter law enforcement that binds all the aforementioned criticalities together, while India is set a mile back in pursuing those.Furthermore, India needs one lakh trained technicians who can perform independent inspection chains. According to me, not just the scrutiny, but there should be an integration of the disparate systems like police, insurance, service logs and registration records, that would serve as a window into the complete history of the vehicles, which in turn helps the buyers to alleviate the risks of falling prey to a web of deceit.

Droom, the online marketplace for used automobiles, is expected to raise between Rs 100-200 crore in the next six months, Sandeep Aggarwal, CEO told FE. In July, the company raised Rs 100 crore from Lightbox Ventures and Beenos, a Japanese internet investment firm. Other players in the space include Carwale, Cardekho, and CarTrade, GetCarXpert, and Carzonrent.

In FY15, the company reported revenues of Rs 93 lakh but higher expenses of Rs 3.1 crore, resulted in a loss of Rs 2.2 crore. Aggarwal, who also founded Shopcues, said Droom would register a gross merchandise value( GMV) of Rs 3,000 crore by March 2017 from Rs 800 crore at the end of March 2016.

The online platform launched its rental services in August and earns a commission of 10%; it has tied up with about 15 rental services and does not hold any inventory of its own. Droom does not charge a listing fee from sellers but earns a premium for its specialised services under the pro seller premium package.

"We have 300 pro sellers listed on our platform and they pay us R15,000 annually as pro seller premium," said Aggarwal explaining the seller can feature a logo, description, prescribed dealership with a brand or rating and a review.

Aggarwal said the sale of services such as insurance and maintenance fetch the highest commissions of 12% while it earns 1.5% on sale of cars and 2% on two-wheelers.

In February, the company clocked 2,300 transactions across services. "We did roughly R56 crore of gross revenues on our platform or R650 crore annualised revenues," he added.

In March, the online platform launched its Eco car inspection app to promote verification and certified valuation of the automobile by a team of experts. The company has tied-up with Carnation Auto to leverage technology and get car technicians on board. These technicians can earn up R30,000 per month by becoming a part of Droom’s Eco app.

With its foray in services, the company plans to launch History in July, an online automobile repository that will solve the problem of trust and transparency in automobile purchase, said Aggarwal adding it will be a paid product.

After all, a seller has to sell. In fact, in our country such is the norm that a seller can do everything to conceal defects or damages. So, it is for buyers to remain on alert.

But, all that might be a thing of past soon. Droom, an online marketplace for buying and selling of used automobiles, has joined hands with Carnation Auto, founded by Jagdish Khattar, to come up with an ECO app. And, the app promises to put behind all the usual worries related to buying of a used automobile.

In a chat with Sandeep Agarwal, CEO and Founder, Droom, I asked how it shall work. And how shall it benefit a buyer. "Well, it is a mobile-based auto inspection solution. And, it would overcome the problem of information asymmetry. Currently, in India buying a used automobile is full of pain points, hassles and pitfalls. ECO app will offer transparency and trust with its unbiased inspection of the vehicle," stated Agrawal, who claims that his organisation’s strength lies in data science and data management.

So, the app will inspect any vehicle on the preset 121 points. And, it will thus give you a full round-up of the automobile.

In addition, there will be a full circle trust score and an orange book value that shall enable you to take a better decision for your buy.It is to give you a score on a scale of 1 to 10 for the vehicle and then it proposes a book value for the vehicle you are looking to buy. If the seller quotes a price somewhat close to the figure on orange book value then you are assured of not getting cheated.

Here Agarwal mentions that "unfortunately in India we don’t have things like Lemon law or Car Fax which in the United States ensure that the seller stays honest in providing correct information about the vehicle to a potential buyer.

So, we have designed this app which will inspect the vehicle on so many counts that it shall tell you in detail, practically everything that needs to be known."

All you need to do as a buyer is book an inspection of the vehicle you are looking to buy through the app. Once that is done a Droom certified auto expert will do the job for you by inspecting the vehicle thoroughly. A comprehensive report would be provided. As of now, Droom and Carnation Auto together offer the services of this ECO app in six cities in India with a promise to expand the network to other cities soon.

Droom is the first and only group in the world to champion the cause of vehicle rights and equal opportunity for vehicles. Through this initiative, the brand will deliver a strong message to educate policymakers and the public about this highly sensitive issue and raise awareness and understanding about the rights of all vehicles. The government is also being petitioned to set up a commission to set guidelines for, and to oversee, use of vehicles by the entertainment industry.

Speaking on the initiative, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Droom, said, "All vehicles are created equal and must be treated so. Vehicles have been our best friends. They are always there for us, whether it is taking you to your first date, keeping the secret of your first kiss, winning those bike races within your neighbourhood or creating memories with friends. It is high time we realise the importance of treating all vehicles with respect. With people talking and discussing these issues, there is a greater chance that governments, movie directors, vehicle owners and other decision-makers will listen."

To support the movement, Droom has integrated an Emergency S.O.V. button in the Droom mobile app, which can be used by vigilant citizens across India to report any vehicle abuse they come across along with images & videos of the act. Once the concern is raised, Save Our Vehicles taskforce members will reach the spot using geo-location to ensure justice for the vehicles in question. The taskforce can also be reached at 024-61024010 or #SaveOurVehicles #Droom. So if you are a conscientious car owner or even just a concerned enthusiast, join the movement and add your voice with a growing community of car lovers.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is an online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and automobile services. Droom has taken a completely innovative and disruptive approach to building trust and pricing advantages for buyers.

Droom’s partnership with Carnation Auto will allow the users of ECO mobile app to access Carnation’s extensive network of workshops and skilled technicians.

The app is aimed at improving the transparency as well as the trust factor associated with buying and selling used automobiles. With this new app, the company is now looking to disrupt the growing market of used automobiles in India.

The mobile application – ECO, will enable sellers to schedule comprehensive automobile inspections from highly trained and certified professionals through its platform.

The professionals performs an auto inspection using Droom’s proprietary methodology and covers an exhaustive list of all the important points in a vehicle to generate a comprehensive auto inspection report.

Then, the digital report will be made available to the buyers while viewing the vehicle, empowering them with the knowledge to make the most informed decisions.

Sandeep Agarwal, CEO and Founder, Droom, says that Eco is India’s most scientific, comprehensive objective and unbiased automobile inspection and verification service. He further said:

Unlike US, Western Europe and Japan, India is low trust market in general and buyers for used automobiles suffer from information asymmetry and moral hazard. In India, buying a used automobile is full of pain points, hassles and pitfall. With Eco launch, Droom has deepened its commitment to increase trust and transparency for used automobile transactions in India. We are very excited to have Carnation as our partner for Eco as it is very complementary with Carnation experts around the nation now using the most scientific and powerful tool to protect buyers’ interest.

Jagdish Khattar, Managing Director, Carnation Auto, said,

The used car sales continue to grow exponentially in India. The ECO app has the potential to reduce information asymmetry in pre – owned cars transactions. Carnation being the leader in the Car Inspection space, is extremely excited about partnering with Droom to power ECO for its launch across India. Together we will take selling and buying of used cars to the next level. This concept will leverage Technology to empower the automobile technicians and certification engineers- the real heroes of Make In India.

Droom was founded in April 2014 by Sandeep Agarwal. It claims to be India’s first online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and automobile services. Last year, the company had raised $15.7 million in a funding round from Lightbox Ventures and Japanese internet firm Beenos. However, Droom continues to face a stiff challenge from CarDekho, which post its Zigwheels acquisition, virtually became the leader in this segment.

Carnation Auto, founded by Mr. Jagdish Khattar, is India’s largest independent aftermarket automobile sales and service network. It offers state-of-art infrastructure for car servicing and other car related solutions like insurance, accessories, Car Inspection and pre owned certified cars.

Online marketplace for used and new automobiles Droom, in association with Carnation Auto, has launched ECO, its mobile-based auto inspection solution. The app is meant to improve the transparency as well as the trust factor associated with buying and selling used automobiles.

The ECO app will enable sellers to schedule comprehensive automobile inspections from highly trained and certified professionals - called Ninjas - through its platform. The ECO Ninja then performs an auto inspection using Droom's proprietary methodology and covers an exhaustive list of all the important points in a vehicle to generate a comprehensive auto inspection report.

This digital report will be made available to the buyers while viewing the vehicle. Droom's partnership with Carnation will also allow ECO users access to Carnation's extensive network of workshops and skilled technicians.

Speaking on the launch, Sandeep Agarwal, CEO and Founder, Droom, said, "Unlike US, Western Europe and Japan, India is low trust market in general and buyers for used automobiles suffer from information asymmetry and moral hazard. With Eco launch, Droom has deepened its commitment to increase trust and transparency for used automobile transactions in India."

In his acknowledgement to the ECO initiative and Carnation's partnership with Droom, Jagdish Khattar, Managing Director, Carnation Auto present at the launch said, "The used car sales continue to grow exponentially in India. The ECO app has the potential to reduce information asymmetry in pre - owned cars transactions. This concept will leverage Technology to empower the automobile technicians and certification engineers- the real heroes of Make In India."

The company, which has launched the app in association with multi-brand car service chain Carnation, will offer inspections, verification, certification and valuation for cars and two-wheelers.

"The ECO app will enable sellers to schedule comprehensive automobile inspections from certified professionals, which is made available to interested buyers and helping them make informed choice," Droom Founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told PTI.

Similarly, buyers can also procure the service to be assured of their purchases, he added.

The service will be available for Rs 200 (two-wheeler) and Rs 500 (cars).

"In a years time, we expect that the platform will facilitate 25,000-35,000 inspections a month... We hope to see an annualised revenue of Rs 15-20 crore by March next year," he said.

The company has launched the service in six cities including Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune.

"By June, we will cover 36-38 cities and towns where Carnation has a presence and by December, we should be there in 50 cities," he said.

Aggarwal said the company expects that 20-25 per cent of the 1.5 lakh listings on its platform will be inspected.

Asked about the opportunity, Carnation Auto Managing Director Jagdish Khattar said the used car sales in India continues to grow exponentially.

"The ECO app has the potential to reduce information asymmetry in pre-owned vehicle transactions. With ECO, we will take selling and buying used cars to the next level," the former Maruti Suzuki India Chief said.

Carnation already works with Quikr and has facilitated one lakh inspections in the last 15-16 months, he added. PTI SR ABI

The mobile-based auto inspection solution, ECO, will lead to car inspection app for inspections, verification, certification and valuation at a click by credited auto experts.

Droom's partnership with Carnation will also allow ECO users access to Carnation's extensive network of workshops and skilled technicians.

Speaking on the launch, Jagdish Khattar, Managing Director, Carnation Auto said, "Used car sales continue to grow exponentially in India. The ECO app has the potential to reduce information asymmetry in pre-owned car transactions. Carnation being the leader in the car inspection space, will power all the Droom products across India. Together we will take selling and buying of used cars to the next level."

Through the move, automobile technicians can leverage the ECO app to increase their consumer outreach and visibility. Equipped with a smart device, technical skills and the mobility to travel from one place to another, technicians can become ECO certified Ninjas through the tutorials on the app and make earnings of up to Rs 30,000 per month.

Sandeep Agarwal, CEO and Founder, Droom, said, "Unlike US, Western Europe and Japan, India is a low-trust market in general and buyers for used automobiles suffer from information asymmetry and moral hazard. In India, buying a used vehicle was quite painful and loaded with hassles. It's now our commitment to increase trust and transparency for used automobile transactions in India with a comprehensive and scientific approach in inspection and verification service."

Droom is a leading consumer internet company in India with over 41,000 sellers and more than 125,000 listings. The company has over a million downloads for its mobile apps.

More than the excitement over the upcoming weekend, it's the prospect of playing poker with cofounder Sidharth Gupta that never fails to create a buzz.

"There are never any formal invitations made for our Friday night poker games, we make spontaneous plans. Often it's my house that's the venue, but we all take turns hosting," said Gupta. "It's a casual and fun way to spend an evening. We simply set up two tables and play some quality poker. I would do the same with my college friends."

For fellow cofounder Rahul Chaudhary, the football ground is the venue of choice, and some Sunday mornings he can be seen heading to a nearby play arena with employees. Clearly, Gupta and Chaudhary have a different leadership style — one that draws on bonding with employees beyond the confines of the workplace. And they're not alone in doing so.

Geetansh Bamania, CEO at Rentomojo, takes part in regular jam sessions with musically-inclined teammembers. "There are about 15 of us in the music club, which I've found is a great platform to just let loose and play some quality music," he said. A self-confessed bibliophile, he also attends regular book club meetings with about 25-30 others.

Geetansh Bamania, CEO at Rentomojo, takes part in regular jam sessions with musically-inclined teammembers. "There are about 15 of us in the music club, which I've found is a great platform to just let loose and play some quality music," he said. A self-confessed bibliophile, he also attends regular book club meetings with about 25-30 others.

Geetansh Bamania, CEO at Rentomojo, takes part in regular jam sessions with musically-inclined teammembers. "There are about 15 of us in the music club, which I've found is a great platform to just let loose and play some quality music," he said. A self-confessed bibliophile, he also attends regular book club meetings with about 25-30 others.

Startups have mushroomed around the country and brought with them a spirit of innovation, but they've also heralded a change in leadership styles. The image of the intimidating boss keeping a strictly professional relationship with employees is now passe. Now, young and dynamic leaders at these newage companies thrive on building common interests and forging personal connections with coworkers.

"It's a new age, one that is characterised by leaders wanting to be friends with employees and keeping in touch on issues not related to work. For startups with small to moderate staff strength, it's definitely possible for founders and/or CEOs to make personal associations," said Anish Sarkar, country leader, Mercer India.

At online house rental startup Grabhouse, employees participate in karaoke nights with CMO Pankhuri Shrivastava, and table tennis games with cofounder Prateek Shukla. At Delhi-based fintech startup IndiaLends, cofounders Gaurav Chopra and Mayank Kachhwaha play chess, darts, and sometimes even Fifa with team-members. In fact, a new hire in the branding and marketing team has induced Chopra to start working out with him, and a few times a week, the two of them head to the gym together.

At talent assessment and analytics startup Jombay, employees indulge in online shopping sessions with cofounder Mohit Gundecha.

"Once a week, a bunch of us sit together with our laptops, look at online shopping sites, check out deals, and make purchases. We decide our themes in advance, one week we might be buying books, the next week's session could be dedicated to clothes — it's a fun experience that really creates better bonding," said Gundecha.

Food is also a big part of the culture at Jombay, with outings to neighbouring restaurants a regular part of the agenda. "All of us love exploring new cuisines, and there aren't too many restaurants in Pune which we haven't been to," Gundecha said.

With startup leaders becoming more approachable to employees and going all out to disrupt authority structures, there is always a risk that some employees may make the mistake of thinking they deserve special treatment. "It's important for young leaders to be friendly and share personal connections with employees, but a balance needs to be struck for smooth functioning of the organisation," said Mercer's Anish Sarkar.

Interestingly, though, not one of these young leaders has found, in the course of their personal interactions, that employees try to get over-friendly or cross the line between friendly and awkward. "Everyone is mature enough to realise that work needs to get done no matter what, and being friendly with the boss won't get one out of delivering on KRAs," said Grabhouse's Shrivastava.

"Employees understand without having to be told that there are boundaries between fun and work. It gets lonely at the top, and having friends at the workplace alleviates that to a very large extent," said Gundecha

Droom India’s first online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and automobile services has had a brilliant Goa experience to take home. Droom saw an eager engagement of nearly 4000 people thronging at its state of the art exhibit ‘Droom Moto Mart’. The Droom Moto Mart, was conceptualised as a platform for Indian Bike Week guests to showcase and sell their bikes under a completely non-commissionable deal.

Participation in the Indian Bike Week proved to be significant for the company as the brand calculated over 50 realtime Customer to Customer (C2C) listings for pre-owned super bikes. There were over five hundred enquiries on Droom’s innovative Orange Book Value (OBV). OBV are pricing algorithms that tell you the value of the vehicle based on make, model, year, and trend pricing. The crowds took part in the Full Circle Trust Score game designed around Droom’s credibility and trust score. Droom ran a contest, Bike Bingo, which will grant guests a chance to win Akaalya, which is an IBW custom Bullet bike.

Highlighting the trends seen at the India Bike Week 2016, Goa, Rishab Malik, Co-founder and VP of Business Development, Droom, opined, "In terms of industry trends, the fascination and desire to own super bikes continue to be on the rise. DSK Barnelli, Harley Davidson, Ducati and Triumph seems to be gaining lots of traction in India. The event saw much larger footfall and more active participation from OEMs vs last year, in our view. It is also my understanding that the desire to own a superbike or a high end bike is growing with the paying capacity of the demographic dividend of India. We can easily foresee the markest size growth for this segment in this Financial Year."

Currently in its fourth year, The Indian Bike Week was attended by bike enthusiasts from across India, and hosted several prominent brands in the Indian biking community.

The best leadership lesson that I learnt MY BOSS SAW me taking a lot of initiatives. One day, he told me something which I think changed my life forever and it was, "Your role is what you carve out, so do not limit yourself and give your best."

The best friend I made on the job I ENDED UP making lots of new friends at work and I still remain in touch with them. Some of my managers became my best friends and I still remain in touch with many of them even after nearly 15 years. At Charles Schwab, I made friends from all the five continents and people hailing from nearly 20 different countries. eradha D My biggest innovation I BUILT A relative risk model for 6,000 banks that resulted in a rating system so that the company could understand the relative risk while investing in various banks' money market securities.

The worst mistake I made I WAS VERY naive and fresh out of business school and made tons of mistakes. But I learnt from each mistake and made sure that I did not make the same mistake again.

How I had fun at work WE DID LOTS of fun activities such as team lunches, wine tasting trips, participated in some charitable events such as Habitat for Humanity, and team building exercises at Treasure Island at San Francisco.

How I managed my work-life balance WHEN I STARTED my first job in San Francisco, I was married with no chil dren. My wife and I would go and try out new cuisines and new bars every weekend. We are very social, so we either invited friends at our place for dinner drinks or ended up being invited ourselves. We also went out for hiking, surfing, wine tasting, water sports and some overnight trips to LA, Lake Tahoe, Napa Valley, San Diego and Yosemite.

Droom, the used car marketplace, is planning to expand to 100 cities within the next month. The company has been ahead of schedule in revenue generation, its founder claimed, adding it was a natural progression.

"We are the biggest used car transaction platform in India and we want to continue the dominance," said Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom.

The company recorded revenue of Rs 36 crore in December 2015, with Rs 32 crore coming from the National Capital Region alone. "If we can generate so much interest in Delhi among the immense competition in the city, we can get some more in other parts of the city. This was the thinking when we decided to plan our expansion," Aggarwal said. The company takes a commission of about two-five per cent per transaction.

"We expect to hit Rs 250 crore GMV (gross merchandise volume) by the end of this financial year and I think we are on track," said Aggarwal.

Despite the fact that hyper-local companies across the country are shrinking back to the metros, Aggarwal remains bullish that Droom will not stumble the way others have. "We don’t have any personnel in most of these centres. To minimise these costs, we invested in what we call Droom University," he said.

It is a concept similar to what Amazon does to help sellers list their products on its platform. "We have no feet on the ground and use channel partners to spread the word," he said. One of the reasons why companies such as Droom gain traction is verified listings. "We offer verified listings as a service. And there we need a mechanic to inspect the cars, which would mean allocating a resource. But we have made strategic partnerships with AXA and Carnation and they have a presence in 4,300 cities. Now, their mechanic will verify the listing for us," he said. Aggarwal also said that there was a one-time cost when going to new cities — when a seven-member team "lays the groundwork".

The company allocates 85 per cent of its budget to technology and marketing, and this expansion will not weigh too heavy on the company’s books. Aggarwal claims that Droom’s costs have increased just five per cent since it started, while the revenue earned rose from Rs 6 lakh in January last year to Rs 42 crore this year.

Droom, he said, was looking to make acquisitions to increase its foothold in the market. "We will make an acquisition in the first quarter of this year," he said. The company said it was in talks to raise funding and should be able to announce something soon.

"The market is bright for used cars. In China, eight marketplaces have cropped up in the past year and have raised $1.8 billion combined," he said. The top 10 cities of India constitute almost 75 per cent of the used car sales.

Last week, used car marketplace Truebil raised $5 million from Kalaari Capital, Inventus and others. The company, started by former Housing.com employees, had raised $500,000 last year. This segment could well be the next big thing in India.

While Santa Claus flew over the world to deliver his presents, Droom, an online marketplace for automobiles, hooked up Delhi's adventurous revellers with helicopter rides over Noida on December 25. The start-up offered customers the option to book choppers on-demand via collaboration with taxi-service, Uber and online recharge app, Paytm. While a chopper ride goes for around 1.56 lakh per hour on the website, the Christmas rides were offered at Rs 2,500 per person.

Talking to MAIL TODAY, co-founder of Droom.com, Sandeep Aggarwal said: "In the past, experiences such as these were limited to the top half of society. But we decided to provide this affordable luxury to everyone." The 30-minute long rides were conducted simultaneously in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Pune and provided seating for five people at a time.

The Noida-based ride covered aerial viewings of farmlands, highways and the city. Commenting on the market for this category of aerial vehicles, Aggarwal said: "Ever since we started this four-five months ago, we have had requests for planes and helicopters for occasions such as weddings, anniversary parties, bachelor parties or even marriage proposals. There is definitely a budget for this." Added Rishab Malik, co-founder and V-P of business development, Droom: "With their growing spending power, urban Indians are constantly on the lookout for something new and engaging. This strategic partnership with Uber for chopper rides was meant to provide customers with just that-a way of celebrating Christmas in a novel, exciting way! "The 'UberCHOPPER' initiative was a smash hit, and also showcased our capability from the 'rides & rentals' category."

The move is facilitated by the Aerial Vehicle category on Droom’s platform, which allows Droom users to rent and purchase aerial vehicles to fulfil all of their private aviation requirements.

Under the partnership, Droom will enable reservations for half-hour chopper rides through the Uber app on Christmas Day, December 25.

This is how its done: iPhone6_full-screenshot_Delhi_UberCHOPPER; Fire up the app between 10 am and 12 noon on Friday, December 25, 2015. Slide over to the UberCHOPPER view and simply request. If connected, you and your friend will be whisked away to the airfield and get a scenic chopper ride for 15 minutes.

The demand for UberCHOPPER will be skyhigh and supply will be limited. So, you may have to try multiple times. The chopper rides will be available between 1 pm and 3 pm only – so make sure you and your friend are ready to leave.

The total fare is Rs 4,999 inclusive of your Uber ride to and from the airfield and the chopper ride for two.

The lucky users availing themselves of this offer will be regaled with princely treatment. Uber will pick up and drop them to the venue, where they will be treated to a lunch/snack before going on the ride.

Droom and Uber had previously collaborated for their ‘Supercar on Demand’ initiative, allowing consumers a chance to rent premier vehicles such as Audi R8 and Hummer and enjoy the superlative experience of being at the wheel of a supercar.

This Christmas, Uber in collaboration with Droom will serve the people of Delhi Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru a chance to take a chopper ride. The reservations can be done through Uber app and the ride will last for thirty minutes. Uber will pick and drop them to the venue and the customers even get to enjoy lunch/snack before the ride.

Rishab Malik, cofounder and vice-president, business development, Droom said in a statement sent to the media, "We are very excited to deepen our relationship with Uber which is one of the most eminent consumer internet brands in the world. This partnership is meant to deliver a unique way of celebrating Christmas to Uber’s consumer base across four major metropolitan cities in India. Droom provides it’s customers with selection, pricing and trust for any automobile asset and service and this alliance leverages our ‘Rides and Rentals category’ for select Uber customers."

A spokesperson from Uber, further added, "Uber is all about giving riders an amazing and unique experience. This is the third time we’re partnering with Droom (the first two being supercars in Delhi and Chandigarh) and are very excited to partner with Droom to bring Chopper rides this Christmas to Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune."

Founded in 2014 by Sandeep Aggarwal, Droom is an online marketplace for buying and selling new and used automobiles. It has technology-driven marketplace approach that enables transactions between buyers and sellers. UBER is an American international transportation network company headquartered in San Francisco, California which develops, markets and operates the Uber mobile app, allowing consumers with smartphones to submit a trip request which is then routed to Uber drivers who use their own cars

Under the partnership, Droom will enable reservations for half-hour chopper rides through the Uber app on Christmas Day, December 25.

Rishab Malik, cofounder and vice-president, business development, Droom said in a statement sent to the media, "We are very excited to deepen our relationship with Uber which is one of the most eminent consumer internet brands in the world. This partnership is meant to deliver a unique way of celebrating Christmas to Uber's consumer base across four major metropolitan cities in India. Droom provides it's customers with selection, pricing and trust for any automobile asset and service and this alliance leverages our 'Rides and Rentals category' for select Uber customers. "

An spokesperson from Uber, further added, "Uber is all about giving riders an amazing and unique experience. This is the third time we're partnering with Droom (the first two being supercars in Delhi and Chandigarh) and are very excited to partner with Droom to bring Chopper rides this Christmas to Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune."

Uber will pick and drop them to the venue, where they will be treated to a lunch/snack before continuing on for the ride. Droom and Uber had previously collaborated for their 'Supercar on Demand' initiative, allowing consumers a chance to rent premier vehicles such as Audi R8 and Hummer and enjoy the superlative experience of being at the wheels of a supercar.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is an online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and automobile services.

Droom is funded by some of the leading global venture investors and has a very strong and proven founding team with 75 years of combined experience in technology, Internet, ecommerce and FMCG including 35 years in Silicon Valley. Droom has a team of 100+ in its offices in Gurgaon (India) and Silicon Valley ( USA).

In an exclusive candid conversation with Inc42, Sandeep shares the learnings and experiences of his journey and discusses the future of ecommerce in India.

Here are the edited excerpts:

Inc42: How has your entrepreneurial journey panned out till now?

Sandeep: Having started our commercial operations in January 2015, the response to Droom has been overwhelming from all key stakeholders – buyers, sellers and investors. We have been heavily funded by some of the leading global venture investors, and have raised a capital funding of around $20 Mn so far. It is a mark of our success that Droom today is one of the fastest growing consumer internet companies in India. The company has grown by over 501 times since its commercial launch and consistently generates $60 Mn in annualised GMV. Given its growth trajectory and momentum, we feel that 3 years from now, Droom will aim at driving INR 10,000 crore in gross revenue and operating in 18-20 countries and 3 continents.

Inc42: What all learnings and experiences have you gained during your journey with Shopclues?

Sandeep: ShopClues was incepted as an online managed marketplace when all the other ecommerce companies in India were still following the inventory-led models. Having pioneered the approach in the Indian market, there were many learning experiences to glean from the venture. First was the impact of SME merchants and non-standard categories could have on the business; nearly 95 percent of offline retailers today belong to the SME segment, and as such provide a potentially huge market to tap into. Another insight that I gained during my association with ShopClues was the role a disruptive market approach and advanced technology-driven business solutions could have on a startup business. I also learnt the value of a unique brand proposition that appeals to both buyers and sellers during my time with ShopClues.

Another insight that I gained during my association with ShopClues was the role a disruptive market approach and advanced technology-driven business solutions could have on a startup business.

Inc42: How have these helped you in creating and developing Droom?

Sandeep: The experience with ShopClues was pivotal in Droom’s creation. Both these companies have a very strong culture of "customer first". We initially focused on the customer interest and then back calculated all that we needed to accomplish to provide customers a world-class experience.

Advanced technologies were used to integrate the business solutions for the target audience, while offline sellers were brought on board. Services and listings were carefully vetted and quality of service ensured. And now, Droom is the only transactional marketplace for automobiles and automobile services in India with 9K+ B2C sellers, 15K+ products, 6K+ listings, $85mil.+ in listed GMV, 700K+ FB Community members (highest for any automobile community in India) and over 500k+ downloads for mobile apps.

Inc42: How did Droom happen?

Sandeep: After ShopClues, I wanted to breach a new market segment – online transactional automobile space – with a never-before used approach. I saw the fragmented, unorganised nature of the Indian automobile marketplace, and thus the idea for Droom was born.

Inc42: How lucrative is the market for Droom? How does it plan to tap the available opportunities?

Sandeep: In 2012, the used car market in India became bigger than the new cars market. As India is the 3rd largest automobile market in the world, so, the addressable opportunity is huge. Moreover, less than 0.5% of this industry is penetrated online. We believe that the automobile industry in India will rise from $125 Bn to $225 Bn by 2020, and the online business will go up from $500 Mn to $20 Bn by 2020. There are 48 Mn automobiles sold in India and the total installed base of automobiles in India is 300 Mn. For every new car, 1.2 used cars and for every new two-wheeler, 1.4 used two wheelers are sold in India. However, at present, only 0.7% is penetrated online, which provides a vast potential market to tap into.

We are looking to add more services and categories to our existing offerings to augment our range. We have already covered the high-end as well as economical automobile categories, and have also launched an aerial category to cater to the HNIs and corporate professionals. We will also continue building our technology platform and work on our existing technology infrastructure. In time, we will extend our services to other parts of South East Asia as well as other regions across the globe to revolutionise how automobile business is approached across the globe.

Inc42: What is the revenue model for Droom?

Sandeep: The revenue model for Droom is as follows:

Current selling service fee of 1.5% on a successful transaction from seller. This can be increased to 2.5% in a year’s time.

Selling service fee of 12% on a successful transaction from service providers. This can be 15% to 18% in a year’s time.

INR 99 to INR 299 per listing from C2C seller.

A monthly subscription fee of INR 500 for Pro-Seller Premium.

Online ad revenue that is almost 100% incremental gross margin business.

Inc42: How do you verify the listings on your platform?

Sandeep: Buyers suffer from lack of trust, standardization of pricing, and access to variety. Sellers suffer from lower pricing due to poor buyer perception, low trade velocity, expensive physical retail and limited reach. With Droom, we are building trust, selection and pricing advantage for buyers

This is mostly done through Droom’s Full Circle Trust Programme. We enable savings of 8-10% with nine trust factors that grade seller, vehicle and documentation. The Buyer Protection ensures that the user’s money is safe in case the transaction fails to close. The brand verifies each seller and issues a Verified Seller badge that is visible to buyers. Also, to further ensure transparency, Droom offers independent, objective and unbiased automobile inspection reports. We also have an Orange Book Value-algorithmic pricing recommendation engine which currently has nearly 1000 B2C sellers and 6000 listings worth 250 crores.

Inc42: How has the company grown since its inception? What is the number of app downloads you have achieved so far? Please share some other numbers that depict the growth of Droom?

Sandeep: The company has grown tremendously since its inception. Since commencing commercial operations in January 2015, the company has grown by over 300 times and is currently driving annual GMV worth $30 Mn. We have 9k+ B2C sellers, 15k+ products, 6k+ listings, $85mil.+ in listed GMV, 700k+ FB Community members (highest for any automobile community in India) and over 500k+ downloads for mobile apps.

Inc42: What are your expansion plans for Droom?

Sandeep: It takes 6 to 8 years to create a world-class company. Keeping that in mind, we have formulated and planned a lot of strategies for the future. We currently operate in 14 categories and we will expand to 20 by end of this year. By end of 2016, we are also looking to expand outwards from India and establish our services in SE Asia, Western Europe and North America. Additionally, considering the fact that Droom has the most robust and advanced platform for any ecommerce company in India, we will continue to expand our platform features and categories to keep up with the latest technological developments.

Inc42: How have you used the $16 Mn (INR 100 Cr.) funding towards the development of Droom? Can we expect another funding round soon?

Sandeep: The funding secured has gone into the continued development of our tech platform and in the launch of new categories. Moreover, the investment will also power our expansion in India and SE Asia, as well as in building the leadership team with strategic hiring of the right talent.

Inc42: You are a veteran of the ecommerce space. How is ecommerce landscape in India evolving? What can we expect in the future?

Sandeep: The ecommerce ecosystem in India is entering a phase of maturation. Startups have now adopted a smarter approach towards business solutions. The increasing smartphone adoption and internet penetration will further boost the growth and present businesses with an unparalleled opportunity to scale up. We can expect the industry to grow over the next five years before entering a phase of consolidation.

The ecommerce ecosystem in India is entering a phase of maturation. Startups have now adopted a smarter approach towards business solutions.

Inc42: Digital commerce is still in a nascent stage in India. As per the recent Gartner report, it accounts for less than 1% of the total retail sales in 2015. What’s missing? How can the ecommerce players drive growth and capture more market share?

Sandeep: Digital commerce in India has largely been driven by the smartphone revolution in the country. However, despite the massive increase in consumer adoption, less than 20 percent of the total population has leveraged the benefits of internet penetration and smartphone usage. As such, there is a potentially large market which is untapped at present.

Improving infrastructure will definitely go a long way in improving the ecommerce growth within the country. Mobile operators and ecommerce players need to come together to make a ubiquitous high-speed mobile networking possible. Moreover, online businesses should also make their interface interactive, yet simple to provide a smoother and more seamless experience for the end-user.

Inc42: A lot of ecommerce players are also going offline. Do you think it’s a wise move? Is online and offline integration the way to go?

Sandeep: Yes, definitely. While they have embraced online commerce with open arms, Indian consumers have long been accustomed to the comfort and trust factor associated with brick-and-mortar stores. Omnichannel ventures combine the benefits of digital commerce with those of the offline channels to optimise their businesses and enhance the consumer experience.

Omnichannel ventures combine the benefits of digital commerce with those of the offline channels to optimise their businesses and enhance the consumer experience.

Inc42: What’s your take on the hype surrounding the startup bubble? Do you think it has finally burst as the funds are drying up? In such a scenario, according to you, which startups will prevail?

Sandeep: The bubble hasn’t burst; rather, it is just cementing itself into something concrete. After widespread proliferation, the startup landscape in the country is going through a stage of evolution as the existing startups concentrate on consolidation after a rapid scale-up. Funding for the startups will help them leverage technology for their growth and business, and ultimately these are the ones which will prevail.

Inc42: How has the funding scenario changed in the current scenario? Do you think it will get tougher for startups to raise funding in the future?

Sandeep: The investment landscape in India has evolved a lot over the past few years. After the initial heavy investments into all startup ventures, both investors and entrepreneurs have grown smarter about capital management. The focus today has shifted on building robust products that can really create a tangible impact in the market rather than just follow what is trending and successful.

As such, we are seeing a renewed dedication towards early stage and seed stage investments. Several growth incubators, accelerators and early stage investment facilitators have cropped up to guide and support startups, while angel investors with entrepreneurial experience are also open to mentoring the upcoming wave of entrepreneurs. I, personally, have also been involved as an angel investor and keep my eyes open for the next big innovative venture that leverages technology and has potential to disrupt the market.

Inc42: Any words of advice for entrepreneurs currently facing a tough time with their startups and contemplating shutdowns.

Sandeep: I have but one thing to say to entrepreneurs going through a rough patch with their ventures – never give up and never let your dreams die. Every entrepreneurial journey entails testing times where your vision and faith in your venture would be tested to the limits. There are learning experiences to be gleaned from every hurdle, ever stumble. Remember, there will always be challenges when you venture off the beaten path, but if you stay strong and keep an open mind to learning, you will find your success.

Exiting a venture and creating/developing a completely new venture from scratch can be a tricky and tough endeavor. However, Sandeep does it with flair and makes it look easy. His journey is like a phoenix rising from the ashes. With Droom vrooming ahead, he aims to soar high; wishing him all the success.

An spokesperson from Uber, further added, "Uber is all about giving riders an amazing and unique experience. This is the third time we're partnering with Droom (the first two being supercars in Delhi and Chandigarh) and are very excited to partner with Droom to bring Chopper rides this Christmas to Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune."

Uber will pick and drop them to the venue, where they will be treated to a lunch/snack before continuing on for the ride. Droom and Uber had previously collaborated for their 'Supercar on Demand' initiative, allowing consumers a chance to rent premier vehicles such as Audi R8 and Hummer and enjoy the superlative experience of being at the wheels of a supercar.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is an online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and automobile services.

Droom is funded by some of the leading global venture investors and has a very strong and proven founding team with 75 years of combined experience in technology, Internet, ecommerce and FMCG including 35 years in Silicon Valley. Droom has a team of 100+ in its offices in Gurgaon (India) and Silicon Valley (USA).

Under the partnership, Droom will enable reservations for 30-minute chopper rides through the Uber app on Christmas Day, December 25.

Speaking on the announcement, Rishab Malik, co-founder and vicepresident, business development, Droom, said, "We are very excited to deepen our relationship with Uber which is one of the most eminent consumer internet brands in the world. This partnership is meant to deliver a unique way of celebrating Christmas to Uber’s consumer base across four major metropolitan cities in India. Droom provides its customers with selection, pricing and trust for any automobile asset and service and this alliance leverages our ‘Rides and Rentals category’ for select Uber customers."

An Uber spokesperson further added, "Uber is all about giving riders an amazing and unique experience. This is the third time we are partnering with Droom and are very excited to partner with Droom to bring chopper rides this Christmas to Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune."

Droom and Uber had previously collaborated for their ‘Supercar on Demand’ initiative, allowing consumers a chance to rent premier vehicles such as Audi and Hummer.

The move is facilitated by the Aerial Vehicle category on Droom's platform, which allows Droom users to rent and purchase aerial vehicles to fulfill all of their private aviation requirements a statement said.

Under the partnership, Droom will enable reservations for half-hour chopper rides through the Uber app on Christmas Day, December 25.

Typhoo Tea brings beautifully treasured bespoke gifts, each one specially designed for lovers of the brew.

"Tea boxes are a great way to store packets of tea, and every tea lover secretly wishes they had one if they don't already. Help them get into the holiday spirit this year by gifting them these Christmas tea hampers," a statement said.

Treasures box with 2 variants: Green tea box treasured green tea variants like Traditional Tulsi, Masala, Coconut, Jasmine, Moroccan Mint, Lemongrass and Natural. With a dozen teas to try they're sure to like at least a handful of them.

Then, Tarta, one of Pune's most popular cake shops at Doubletree by Hilton, every year creates a wonderful gingerbread house in the Christmas month. The ginger bread house is especially made by the pastry master chefs that give you a Christmas feel at your doorstep throughout the month.

"This small house is a great idea as a Christmas gift or even to take home and enjoy with the family," a statement said.

Tarta is also offering a wide range of other Christmas bakery items such as: Christmas tree ginger bread cookies, Christmas pudding, Mince pie, Dundee cake, Christmas cake, Mini Panetone, Stolen and Red Velvet cookies.

And, through Flipkart, concoct a unique mix of tech, fashion and home decor items for your gifting checklist this Christmas season.

This clearly shows a huge market and several players such as CarDekho, CarTrade, OLX, Quikr, Spinny, Zoomo are trying to capture consumers mindset. As a result, Quikr Cars, OLX and CarTrade are aggressively advertising on mass media and online.

In a latest development, Droom, a 12-month-old online marketplace to buy and sell used automobiles, has launched its debut mass media campaign to reach out to spread awareness. The brand recently roped in Contract Advertising as its creative agency.

Their campaign 'Bindaas Ghoom', which includes two TVCs highlight the joys of owning a second hand vehicle, which is properly verified on all accounts. Both ads feature a couple who debate whether their recently bought vehicles warrant a celebration or not. While the men in both TVCs are reluctant to be overjoyed, the women turn the spotlight on the ways in which the vehicle will be a most pleasant addition to their lives. They appropriately underplay the importance that one attaches to the concept of being "second" and emphasize on the fact that the vehicles are "new" for them! The ads end with the tagline 'Miley feeling nai wali'. Both the films showcase the pleasure that any vehicle brings into the lives of its owners, be it new or pre-owned.

Speaking on the idea behind this campaign, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom, says, "This campaign is based on consumer insights. Firstly, consumer faces a lot of trust issues while buying used cars, such as they have no clue about the condition of the car, dents, engine and price. Secondly, people attach a lot of pride in buying either a used or new car. We are urging consumers to keep Droom in the consideration set whenever they plan buy a used car. Moreover, the ticket size is much higher in our case, so we have to create trust with our users." He further added that at present Droom has the opportunity to own the market leadership.

High on Recall?

Now, since used cars has been a category to watch out for in India of late, and as pointed out, all the major players have based their advertising on the message that owning a used car is now easy and trustworthy. Though the current ad from Droom is a nicely executed film, unfortunately, until the end, people are unable to realize which brand or platform is talked about. People will have to watch the entire film to find out that it is for Droom.

Aggarwal says, "We wanted to weave an emotional story around the used cars and hence avoided using the brand name in the story. The idea was to engage and connect with the audiences. Our objective was to change the people's perception towards buying a used vehicle, which often ranges from less positive to negative attitudes as compared to buying a new car."

Commenting on the ad, Saket Vaidya, Regional Head, Business Leader and Digital Solution Architect, ‎Indigo Consulting opines that Droom has wasted a big opportunity. "It is a nicely executed film but until the end one does not recognizes that it's an ad for Droom. Moreover, the brand could have actually associated any feature of the used car buying-selling with the plot, which could have become a lingo in the category. Imagine the kind of recall, the brand would have got from it," adds Vaidya.

He further pointed at the brief given to the agency was not appropriate. "The entire tonality of the film seems to be negative. Even when people buy a used car, they celebrate it because it's a car. The brand should discourage showcasing such attitude in the ad films. One must understand that such an attitude around the used cars is fabricated but in real it does not exists. Droom could have shown how used car helps people, happiness it adds to life and other aspects. In my opinion, the agency has executed the film very wisely but the brief was not right," shares Vaidya.

A Differentiated Offering

Droom has a very transactional model where sellers list their inventory for consumers to pick and choose. So, when a consumer zeroes in on a model, he/she has to pay 2% of the listed price to Droom, which serves as a token amount to block the particular vehicle listing. Next, consumer has to visit the seller outlet and pay the left over 98% for picking up the car. However, if consumer decides not to buy the car, Droom returns the token money.

The platform also allows general consumers to list their vehicles. However, the platform claims itself to be completely different from other players operating in this market such as Quikr, OLX, CarDekho and others.

"OLX and Quikr are online classifieds, where consumer interacts with the consumer. The trust factor for a vehicle is completely missing as people have to assess the condition of the car themselves. However, Droom provides a score to every car depending on its condition (after a thorough inspection), which assures the consumer. Moving on, CarDekho or CarTrade, are content companies that generate leads for sellers. A consumer does not want to be repeatedly called by the sellers even if he has expressed interest in buying a used car. In our case, seller has no information about a consumer until he visits his outlet. Moreover, as soon as a user commits to buy a certain car, we de-activate the listing and hence positioning the consumer as an exclusive buyer for that particular automobile," shares Aggarwal.

Droom is spending over Rs 50 crore in the coming 12 months to build its brand. It has allocated funds on TV, Print, OOH and Radio. Besides, brand has allocated a separate budget for digital including social media, performance, and others. Droom is targeting metro centric and digital savvy audience between the age group of 21 and 45 years.

The platform's overall marketing strategy includes a mix of offline and online media with three focus areas - Creating Viral Content, Performance Based Approach and Emotional Connect with audiences. "The first two areas are covered via our digital initiatives. We spend on strengthening our social media community, app downloads and performance oriented campaigns. However, to build a stronger emotional connect we are doing mass media campaigns. We are working with our agencies to create viral content, and are regularly mapping our footsteps," adds Aggarwal.

He further adds that people do a lot of research before making a decision to buy-sell car. "It is a non-impulsive category and hence digital is one of the key mediums for us. There is a huge challenge of category building ahead of us," shares Aggarwal.

For the record, in last one year, Droom has made over 6,500 transactions and currently it clams to sell 40 vehicles on an average per day. It earns 60% of its revenues from two-wheelers, 25% from cars and rest from the other services.

Read our entire coverage on Droom

He further claims that Droom gets over 2 million monthly visitors. It has established a 1.3 million strong community on Facebook. "Our users are spending time on research on Droom. They spend 10-19 minutes on our platform and surf nearly 21 pages at once," shares Aggarwal. The platform already provides its services in 71 cities and will be adding more. It currently works with dealers across the country and the brand is valued at upwards of Rs 300 crore.

Droom is certainly trying hard to grow in the category and acquire leadership, but will it be able to take the mindspace that is occupied by the early movers in the category is yet to be seen.

Droom, a marketplace for automobiles, has recently announced the launch of Orange Book Value (OBV) to measure the fair price range for any used automobile.

The Silicon Valley founded start-up states that used automobile market in India is full of uncertainties and pricing mechanism is often ambiguous, subjective and dependant on the seller’s discretion.

"Unlike a ‘new’ vehicle that comes with a standard price, the pricing of a pre-owned vehicle always varies depending on parameters like condition, kilometres driven etc. Orange Book Value is aimed to provide fair valuation of any vehicle," says the company in a statement.

"We are launching India’s first algorithmic pricing engine to calculate the fair market value of OBV. Right valuation of a pre-owned vehicle has always been a difficult task for both buyers and sellers and with OBV we have tried to address and solve this problem," says Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom.

The company claims that the OBV is the most trusted valuation guide for automobiles, be it cycle, bike, car or even plane.

"Droom is technology and data science driven company and with our innovative and disruptive marketplace approach, we build trust, pricing, transparency and convenience advantages in a unique way for buyers and sellers for used automobiles. Launch of this feature is a step towards this commitment to our users, "adds Aggarwal.

Till now the market for buying and selling of cars has remained very fragmented and price fixation has always remained a challenge. India’s second hand auto market which is bigger than its premium car market has always had the problem to fix a price which is suitable for the two parties, the buyer and seller.

Droom is amongst the fastest growing consumer Internet companies in India with 19k+ B2C sellers, 25k+ products, 18k+ listings, Rs 675 crore+ in listed GMV.

The start-up has witnessed a rapid expansion since its public launch in January 2015 and has grown over 500 times during this period.

Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom said,"Right valuation of a pre-owned vehicle has always been a difficult task for both buyers and sellers and with OBV we have tried to address and solve this problem. We have developed OBV with a long term vision of making it the most trusted valuation guide for automobiles, be it cycle, bike, car or even plane.

Droom is technology and data science driven company and with our innovative and disruptive marketplace approach, we build trust, pricing, transparency and convenience advantages in a unique way for buyers and sellers for used automobiles. Launch of this feature is a step towards this commitment to our users."

Now any automobile buyer, seller check the price for any used automobile. A seller can consider OBV pricing while creating a listing on Droom platform or while selling an automobile on any platform or channel. Similarly, a buyer can refer to OBV pricing to have another reference point about the fair market value of an automobile, be it at Droom or any other platform or channel. OBV is category agnostic and one can find the fair valuation of any automobile from bike to plane.

Droom publicly launched in January 2015 and the company raised Rs 100 crore in July this year on a Series A funding round raised by Lightbox.

Droom has 19,000 B2C sellers, 25,000 products, 18,000 listings, Rs 675 crore in listed GMV, according to a statement shared by the company. It has a team of 100+ in its offices in Gurgaon (India) and Silicon Valley (USA).

The Silicon Valley founded start-up states that used automobile market in India is full of uncertainties and pricing mechanism is often ambiguous, subjective and dependant on the seller’s discretion.

"Unlike a ‘new’ vehicle that comes with a standard price, the pricing of a pre-owned vehicle always varies depending on parameters like condition, kilometres driven etc. Orange Book Value is aimed to provide fair valuation of any vehicle," says the company in a statement.

"We are launching India’s first algorithmic pricing engine to calculate the fair market value of OBV. Right valuation of a pre-owned vehicle has always been a difficult task for both buyers and sellers and with OBV we have tried to address and solve this problem," says Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom.

The company claims that the OBV is the most trusted valuation guide for automobiles, be it cycle, bike, car or even plane.

"Droom is technology and data science driven company and with our innovative and disruptive marketplace approach, we build trust, pricing, transparency and convenience advantages in a unique way for buyers and sellers for used automobiles. Launch of this feature is a step towards this commitment to our users, "adds Aggarwal.

Till now the market for buying and selling of cars has remained very fragmented and price fixation has always remained a challenge. India’s second hand auto market which is bigger than its premium car market has always had the problem to fix a price which is suitable for the two parties, the buyer and seller.

Droom is amongst the fastest growing consumer Internet companies in India with 19k+ B2C sellers, 25k+ products, 18k+ listings, Rs 675 crore+ in listed GMV.

The start-up has witnessed a rapid expansion since its public launch in January 2015 and has grown over 500 times during this period.

Sandeep Agarwal from Droom says, "We have also arranged planes for an entire wedding. The client was based out of Mumbai. We had about 80 guests on board."

Most such bookings are from Mumbai, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. And now, Bengaluru has started making a few enquiries as well, says Captain Atish from Colossus Air Services.

Sandeep says that planes are sometimes hired to pick up guests. "People hire one to host a bachelor party or sometimes even propose to their girlfriends or boyfriends."

Eighty per cent of his customers are male, he says, and they earn anything between Rs5 lakh and Rs11 lakh annually. Within four months, Droom has received about 20 bookings. "A majority of bookings are for this December and January," he shares.

Sandeep provides three kinds of planes depending on the requirement -- Falcon, Hawker, Bombardier. It costs a minimum of Rs1.46 lakh for an hour. Guests sometimes also have special requests. "They want customised flower arrangements and menu," he said.

Sunil Narayanan, director at Chipsan Aviation, says that 75 per cent of the time people hire helicopters for showering flowers while a marriage is in progress or when the happy couple step out of the church.

"People are sometimes particular about being married at the Guruvayur Temple, but there are few wedding halls around. So, they are forced to book halls 200-300 km away from the temple and the couple and relatives fly in to the hall in a helicopter," he says. The helicopter service is also used for flying to honeymoon spots.

The aviation services are particular about safety. Surya Narayana makes sure he has a 12-kg dry chemical extinguisher and a fully equipped first-aid box.

Hiring a helicopter is not easy. It requires a written permission from the District Magistrate.

"Along with that they also have to arrange for medical, fire and security services at the place where the copter will land," says Colossus’ Captain Atish. But his clients are prepared to take the trouble for a bit of novelty.

But sometimes these helicopters also face the brunt of bad weather.

"We inform the client in advance about it. We make sure that weather is perfect for flying before we take off," he says.

What does it cost?

Price: Rs1.46 lakh per hour

Average cost: Rs3 to Rs4 lakhs per wedding

Occasions: Wedding, proposals, bachelor parties, commute to wedding halls 80% of customers male

This week, we caught up with Sandeep Aggarwal, the founder and CEO of Droom, an online automobile seller. Here's a look at the apps and gadgets that power Aggarwal's life.

Describe your technology setup - what computer/ phone/ tablet/ camera/ gaming console/ other gadgets do you use?
Sandeep Aggarwal: I use an 11-inch MacBook Air, an iPhone 6 Plus, and an iPad Mini 4. I'm a big Bose fan, and own almost all models of Bose sound systems, be it headphones, portable speakers or large home theaters. I like gaming, and own a Wii U and a PlayStation 3, and I also love my Beats wireless headphones.

What are three apps (mobile/ tablet or PC/ Mac) you couldn't live without?
Sandeep Aggarwal: Three apps that have to be on any phone I'm using are Google Maps, to get around, Facebook, to keep in touch with people, and of course Droom.

What is one gadget (other than your phone) you never travel without?
Sandeep Aggarwal: My Beats wireless headphones.

What is your dream gadget/ technology setup?
Sandeep Aggarwal: I love audio equipment, and of course, there's always the next big thing in audio technology. My wishlist right now is for an extremely powerful audio and video receiver with very powerful and fine output for audio, and 3D video output.

How has technology changed the way in which you work?
Sandeep Aggarwal: Earlier I used to drive the technology and now technology drives me. In last 5 to 7 years, there has been so rapid and immense innovation in technology and empowerment is that my day starts and end with the technology - with my smartphone, my tablet, using apps, or over the Internet, I'm always, fully connected.

A significant portion of the hiring will also be directed towards building a specialised team to help customers with their buying decisions.

"Droom has seen remarkable growth in the last few months and we are now looking to expand our talent pool by bringing in fresh crop of passionate individuals," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told PTI.

"We are recruiting from top institutes like Delhi School of Economics, Delhi College of Engineering, IIM-Shillong, IIM-Udaipur and Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, among others," he said.

He added that the company is looking to double its headcount by March next year from the current base of 120.

Aggarwal had earlier founded e-commerce firm ShopClues.

"Apart from fresh talent, we are also looking at hiring for middle and senior levels across departments. This will also be important as we expand to South East Asian market by early 2016," he said.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom offers a marketplace to sell cars and motorcycles, superbikes and premium cars as well as planes. It has raised Rs 100 crore funding in Series A, led by Lightbox.

It claims to be clocking Rs 500 crore in annualised Gross Merchandise Value (GMV, or the gross value of products sold through the marketplace over a certain period of time).

"The ramp up will help us further scale up operations. We will recruit talent across departments, including technology, marketing, product management, category management and customer support," he said.

Droom will also beef up its special vertical called 'Droom Assist'.

"Under Droom Assist, our experts help customers in making their buying decisions as per the desired requirements like budget and technical specifications, thus making vehicle hunting a personalised experience for users. We will expand this team as well," Aggarwal added.

The government's proposed start-up policy might result in unnecessary policing and restrictions on the sector, fear some.

More than a policy on start-ups, the need is to free these from red tape, said Sandeep Aggarwal, founder of ShopClues and chief executive of Droom. The government, he said, should work on streamlining the taxation rules.

"There is no tax advantage of operating in India,'' he said, while noting countries such as Singapore have turned into start-up hubs because of the attractive tax regime there.

Another top executive at an online company said to set up an e-commerce venture in India is time consuming and cumbersome, with clearances needed from various departments. In the US, this takes a couple of hours.

Smaller e-commerce companies also fear the government's move on further regulations would only stifle their growth. A group of representatives of small and medium-sized e-commerce companies have sought a review of the government's plan to define e-commerce and the business models which operate under it. Led by E-Commerce Coalition secretary Aamir Jariwala, they filed a representation to the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) last week.

The coalition said it apprehended that any definition for the existing e-commerce marketplace models might lead to escalating the level of regulation in the sector. It stressed that the government only needed to liberalise the rules on the sector, allowing foreign investment in inventory-led companies, too.

However, business chambers such as the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) are supportive of a government policy. Such a policy would help start-ups secure funds in an easier way, help them formulate an exit strategy, and have policies around easy liquidation of business, which have all been demands of the sector, they believe.

"A start-up policy is most definitely required, as it will help in creating a favourable system. There should be ease of doing business for start-ups and getting approvals for legitimate start-ups should be easier and faster; a single-window clearance system would greatly help," said Viresh Oberoi, chairman of the CII's national e-commerce committee. This should be an umbrella policy, targeted at all sectors, from manufacturing to e-commerce, Oberoi said. ''The basic idea is to make the process of setting up start-ups simpler and transparent."

In his Independence Day speech, the prime minster had announced a 'Start-up India, Stand-up India' campaign, to promote bank financing for start-ups and offer these incentives to boost entrepreneurship and job creation. The draft policy in the making is drawing inputs from some knows names, such as SoftBank President Nikesh Arora, Snapdeal CEO Kunal Bahl, Oyo Rooms' founder Ritesh Agarwal and former Infosys director Mohandas Pai.

Droom, an online marketplace for automobiles, is looking to double its headcount over the next few months by hiring over 100 people from leading institutes for functions like technology, marketing and customer support.

A significant portion of the hiring will also be directed towards building a specialised team to help customers with their buying decisions.

"Droom has seen remarkable growth in the last few months and we are now looking to expand our talent pool by bringing in fresh crop of passionate individuals," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told PTI.

"We are recruiting from top institutes like Delhi School of Economics, Delhi College of Engineering, IIM-Shillong, IIM-Udaipur and Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, among others," he said.

He added that the company is looking to double its headcount by March next year from the current base of 120.

Aggarwal had earlier founded e-commerce firm ShopClues.

"Apart from fresh talent, we are also looking at hiring for middle and senior levels across departments. This will also be important as we expand to South East Asian market by early 2016," he said.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom offers a marketplace to sell cars and motorcycles, superbikes and premium cars as well as planes. It has raised Rs 100 crore funding in Series A, led by Lightbox.

It claims to be clocking Rs 500 crore in annualised Gross Merchandise Value (GMV, or the gross value of products sold through the marketplace over a certain period of time).

"The ramp up will help us further scale up operations. We will recruit talent across departments, including technology, marketing, product management, category management and customer support," he said.

Droom will also beef up its special vertical called 'Droom Assist'.

"Under Droom Assist, our experts help customers in making their buying decisions as per the desired requirements like budget and technical specifications, thus making vehicle hunting a personalised experience for users. We will expand this team as well," Aggarwal added.

A significant portion of the hiring will also be directed towards building a specialised team to help customers with their buying decisions.

"Droom has seen remarkable growth in the last few months and we are now looking to expand our talent pool by bringing in fresh crop of passionate individuals," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told PTI.

"We are recruiting from top institutes like Delhi School of Economics, Delhi College of Engineering, IIM-Shillong, IIM-Udaipur and Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, among others," he said.

He added that the company is looking to double its headcount by March next year from the current base of 120.

Aggarwal had earlier founded e-commerce firm ShopClues.

"Apart from fresh talent, we are also looking at hiring for middle and senior levels across departments. This will also be important as we expand to South East Asian market by early 2016," he said.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom offers a marketplace to sell cars and motorcycles, superbikes and premium cars as well as planes. It has raised Rs 100 crore funding in Series A, led by Lightbox.

It claims to be clocking Rs 500 crore in annualised Gross Merchandise Value (GMV, or the gross value of products sold through the marketplace over a certain period of time).

"The ramp up will help us further scale up operations. We will recruit talent across departments, including technology, marketing, product management, category management and customer support," he said.

Droom will also beef up its special vertical called 'Droom Assist'.

"Under Droom Assist, our experts help customers in making their buying decisions as per the desired requirements like budget and technical specifications, thus making vehicle hunting a personalised experience for users. We will expand this team as well," Aggarwal added.

"Droom has seen remarkable growth in the last few months and we are now looking to expand our talent pool by bringing in fresh crop of passionate individuals," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told PTI.

Online automobile marketplace Droom has expanded its base to Maharashtra by on-boarding more than 250 sellers in the state, the company said in a statement.

The company's venture to Mumbai, Pune, Nasik, and Thane This will allow users in these areas to avail other automobile related services like auto insurance, auto inspection, road side assistance, car care and rides on rent through Droom platform.

With hundreds of sellers already active from Maharashtra, Droom will be looking to make most of the unparalleled business proposition the region offers and expand its service network to other parts of the state.

Speaking on the announcement Co-founder & VP of Business Development at Droom Rishab Malik, said, "Our innovative and disruptive marketplace approach coupled with the advanced technology tools that we have built will empower sellers in the state to sell more automobiles online through Droom, simultaneously buyers will benefit from our data driven approach, pricing advantages and transparency."

The brand has also tied up with various premium car dealers such as Excel Cars and organised pre-owned car dealers like CarKing already present in Mumbai to ensure high-quality service delivery.

Droom has recently announced its entry in Punjab market and with its expansion to Mumbai, Pune, Nasik and Thane the platform will now be present in close to 70 cities across the country.

Droom, an online marketplace for used and new automobiles and auto-related services, has announced Contract Advertising and Equinox as its creative and media buying agencies.

The company is set to launch a campaign soon across TV, print, outdoor and online formats.

Contract Advertising will be taking care of creative duties across formats including traditional and digital.

Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom, said, "We were very impressed by the works both agencies have done for new age companies and hence we decided to go forward and make them our partners in brand building. Droom has built a highly innovative platform to solve buyer and seller pain points in buying and selling used automobiles and we are ready to showcase this 21st century online experience to mass audiences now."

The company is all set to launch is brand marketing campaign soon which will be spread across TV, print, outdoor and online formats. The mandate for creative duties was bagged by Contract Advertising on the basis of its credentials and the recent work put out by the agency. Contract will be taking care of creative duties across formats including TV, print and digital. Equinox will be responsible for media buying for the company.

On awarding of the creative and media buying mandates, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom said," We were very impressed by the works of both agencies have done for new age companies and hence we decided to go forward and make them our partners in brand building. Droom has built a highly innovative platform to solve buyer and seller pain points in buying and selling used automobiles and we are ready to showcase this 21st century online experience to mass audiences now."

Droom has in a short span grown rapidly and now boasts of Rs 500 + crore of listed GMV with a presence in over 60 cities. With its steep growth pace, the brand is also doubling its marketing efforts and will soon be out with an aggressive marketing campaign.

The company is all set to launch its brand marketing campaign soon which will be spread across TV, print, outdoor and online formats. As part of the creative mandate, Contract will take care of creative duties across formats including TV, print and digital, while Equinox will be responsible for media buying for the company.

On the awarding of the creative and media buying mandates, Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom, says, "We were impressed by the work both agencies have done for new age companies, and hence, we decided to go forward and make them our partners in brand building. Droom has built a highly innovative platform to solve buyer and seller pain points in the automobiles business, and we are now ready to showcase this 21st century online experience to mass audiences."

Droom has, in a short span, grown rapidly and now boasts of Rs 500+ crore of listed GMV, with a presence in over 60 cities. The brand is also doubling its marketing efforts and will soon be out with an aggressive marketing campaign.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom has taken a completely innovative and disruptive approach to build trust and pricing advantages for buyers.

Droom is all set to launch is brand marketing campaign soon which will be spread across TV, print, outdoor and online formats. The mandate for creative duties was bagged by Contract Advertising on the basis of its credentials and the recent work put out by the agency. Contract will be taking care of creative duties across formats including TV, print and digital. Equinox will be responsible for media buying for the company.

Droom is an online marketplace for used and new automobiles and auto-related services and has taken a disruptive and innovative approach to building trust and pricing advantages for buyers.

On awarding of the creative and media buying mandates, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom, said, "We were very impressed by the works that both agencies have done for new age companies and hence we decided to go forward and make them our partners in brand-building. Droom has built a highly innovative platform to solve buyer and seller pain points in buying and selling used automobiles and we are ready to showcase this 21st century online experience to mass audiences now."

Droom has, in a short span grown rapidly and now boasts of more than Rs 500 crore of listed GMV with a presence in over 60 cities. With its steep pace of growth, the brand is also doubling its marketing efforts and will soon be out with an aggressive marketing campaign.

Droom is all set to launch is brand marketing campaign soon which will be spread across TV, print, outdoor and online formats. The mandate for creative duties was bagged by Contract Advertising on the basis of its credentials and the recent work put out by the agency. Contract will be taking care of creative duties across formats including TV, print and digital. Equinox will be responsible for media buying for the company.

Hailed as the economic capital of India, the Mumbai Metropolitan Area has more than2crore individuals currently residing in its districts and has one of the highest per capita vehicle availabilit in the country. With hundreds of sellers already active from Maharashtra, Droom will be looking to make most of the unparalleled business proposition the region offers and expand its service network to other parts of the state. Speaking on the announcement Co-founder & VP of Business Development at Droom Rishab Malik, said, "Our innovative and disruptive marketplace approach coupled with the advanced technology tools that we have built will empower sellers in the state to sell more automobiles

through Droom, simultaneously buyers will benefit from our data driven approach, pricing advantages and transparency.We strongly believe in building trust and mitigating information asymmetry so that buying and selling becomes a smoother process online."

Droom's entry into the state will providedealers in the region with an unparalleled opportunity to leverage its disruptive market approach to boost business. The brand has also tied up with various premium car dealers such as Excel Cars and organised pre-owned car dealers like CarKing already present in Mumbai to ensure high-quality service delivery.

Droom has recently announced its entry in Punjab market and with its expansion to Mumbai, Pune, Nasik and Thane the platform will now be present in close to 70 cities across the country. The company has also raised Rs 100 crores in July this year in Series A funding led by Lightbox.

The company is all set to launch is brand marketing campaign soon which will be spread across TV, print, outdoor and online formats. The mandate for creative duties was bagged by Contract Advertising on the basis of its credentials and the recent work put out by the agency. Contract will be taking care of creative duties across formats including TV, print and digital. Equinox will be responsible for media buying for the company.

On awarding of the creative and media buying mandates, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom, said," We were very impressed by the works of both agencies have done for new age companies and hence we decided to go forward and make them our partners in brand building. Droom has built a highly innovative platform to solve buyer and seller pain points in buying and selling used automobiles and we are ready to showcase this 21st century online experience to mass audiences now."

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom claims to have grown rapidly and now boasts of Rs 500 + crore of listed GMV with a presence in over 60 cities. With its steep growth pace, the brand is also doubling its marketing efforts and will soon be out with a marketing campaign.

The company is all set to launch is brand marketing campaign soon which will be spread across TV, print, outdoor and online formats. The mandate for creative duties was bagged by Contract Advertising on the basis of its credentials and the recent work put out by the agency. Contract will be taking care of creative duties across formats including TV, print and digital. Equinox will be responsible for media buying for the company.

On awarding of the creative and media buying mandates, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom said," We were very impressed by the works of both agencies have done for new age companies and hence we decided to go forward and make them our partners in brand building. Droom has built a highly innovative platform to solve buyer and seller pain points in buying and selling used automobiles and we are ready to showcase this 21st century online experience to mass audiences now."

Droom boasts of Rs 500 + crore of listed GMV with a presence in over 60 cities. With its steep growth pace, the brand is also doubling its marketing efforts and will soon be out with an aggressive marketing campaign.

Speaking about this, Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom said, "We were very impressed by the works of both agencies have done for new age companies and hence we decided to go forward and make them our partners in brand building. Droom has built a highly innovative platform to solve buyer and seller pain points in buying and selling used automobiles and we are ready to showcase this 21st century online experience to mass audiences now."

The company will launch its brand marketing campaign soon which will be spread across TV, print, outdoor and online formats.

Industry estimates peg the value of refurbished phone market at around $ 1 billion. "The mobile phones market is roughly valued at $15 billion. About one-two per cent of the phones, in our estimation, are returned within the first month. And another six-seven per cent is returned within the warranty period. This brings the market roughly to $1 billion," said Nitin Kochhar, assistant vice-president (categories), Shopclues. Most of these returned phones can be touched up and sold once again at deep discounts and that is where the market comes from. According to Kochhar, the market might reach up to $5 billion in three years.

Refurbished phones are just the tip of the iceberg, say experts. Such phones fall under shared economy, a concept that is being taken seriously by investors and entrepreneurs.

"India has always been clued in to the used market. We would give away our old TV to the maid or sell our laptops by weight," said Harish HV, partner, Grant Thornton. OLX and Quikr brought it into focus but listing wasn't enough. It needed to be interactive and that's what others brought to the party. And, it's not about electronics alone, but extends to homes, cars and clothes.

One of the biggest shared economy segments in the world is shared homes, primarily Airbnb. The company encourages people to let out their spare rooms or homes to travellers. It not only generates income but also helps the traveller get a first-hand experience of how life is in that city or country, creating a used case. A buzzword that exists in every venture capitalist's handbook.

"Indians are waking up to let their rooms out to fellow travellers," said Yogendra Vasupal, founder, Stayzilla. The Bengaluru-based company, a marketplace for hotel rooms, recently launched Social Stay, a format similar to Airbnb but with a marked difference. The company uses its special "matchmaking tool", which helps people find others from their own special interest. "One of the primary reasons we were not comfortable was we didn't know who would be living with us in our own homes. But if we can identify them from a community of interests and hobbies, we could open up to it," he added. The company, he said, has seen an upturn in adoption. The average ticket size for "alternative arrangements" is bigger as well. "People are keener on paying Rs 1,600 for a home stay arrangement than Rs 1,100 for a hotel room," he said. After starting last month, the company already has 13,000 rooms listed on its platform.

Stayzilla has been popular with investors as well and has raised over $20 million from Nexus and Matrix Partners over the last year.

The growing wave of shared economy adoption reached the shores of India with transport sharing.

BlaBlaCar has been European backpacker's ride sharing service of choice. The company came to India in January and since then it has been on an upward trajectory. It currently boasts of 17 million km driven through its service.

"We have tied up with IRCTC to encourage users to book BlaBlaCar if their tickets are waitlisted. We also run campaigns on radio to encourage drivers to sign up for BlaBlaCar. As a result, almost 350,000 seats have been shared in over 700 cities," said Raghav Gupta, country manager, BlaBlaCar.

The French ride-sharing company, internationally, raised $200 million recently and is valued at $1.5 billion.

Its local rival, Ola, too, has been riding on the ride-sharing wave. The company declared that it had raised $225 million in September, not too long before announcing its car-pooling, Share, and bus aggregation services, Shuttle. Ola plans to run pilot projects in Gurgaon and Bengaluru to perfect Shuttle before introducing it to other cities. Share was launched in October with the pilot in Bengaluru. Share uses an algorithm to match riders and their destinations with shared cabs.

Venture capitalists argue that used cars, too, should be considered part of the shared universe.

"Currently, Droom has an annual GMV of Rs 200 crore and we expect to reach Rs 600 crore by the end of the year. The used vehicle universe is definitely on the rise. Just the used vehicles market, online and offline, is worth $60 billion," said Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom. Aggarwal explained that as the buying power increases, so will the churn of vehicles. "Even the average ownership time is dropping. Our research shows that for every one new car bought, 1.2 used cars are sold," he added. He expects that four per cent of all households to own a car (used or new) and 24 per cent to have two wheelers.

"We raise the shared economy to even planes. We are a marketplace where one can rent airplanes, which stay idle 80 per cent of the time," he said. The company has so far raised $16 million from Lightbox Ventures and Japanese internet firm Beenos.

Renting tuxedos for graduations and weddings doesn't raise too many eyebrows but used clothing doesn't inspire too much confidence in the Indian mindset. VCs believe that is now set to change.

There are now several bootstrapped companies that have popped up in Mumbai alone that allow users to rent clothes. The Style Door, SwishList, Devil's Closet and Luxemi are some examples. Currently, the average ticket size of about Rs 3,000, is an encouragement to investors but it might still be at the crux of the next big wave.

This is just the beginning, analysts said, and the market will see an explosion of shared goods and services in five years.

The Lightbox-backed firm offers a marketplace to sell cars and motorcycles, superbikes and premium cars as well as planes.

"Currently, we are clocking an annualised GMV of Rs 200 crore and we are confident of this growing to Rs 600 crore by March-end (2016)... We have seen a strong traction on both the product and services side," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told PTI.

He added the company is also looking at expanding into newer product categories and extending the services available through its platform.

GMV is a term used in online retailing to indicate the gross merchandise value of the products sold through the marketplace over a certain period of time.

"We have services like auto inspection, car care and detailing and roadside assistance and we will soon introduce auto loans. We want to be the enabling platform to help people buy and maintain anything with wheels," he said.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom raised Rs 100 crore funding in Series A, led by Lightbox. The first round of funding for Droom was led by BEENOS.

Aggarwal had earlier founded e-commerce firm ShopClues.

Droom has about 100 employees and will expand its team to 160 people by March next year, hiring primarily to further strengthen its technology platform.

"The current experience of buying and selling an automobile is completely broken, antiquated and full of pitfalls. With our technology-driven marketplace approach, we want to bring in transparency, build trust and mitigate information asymmetry," he said.

To cash on the high internet penetration in some of the developed markets overseas, home-grown online platform Droom, which deals in the sale and purchase of second-hand cars, will set up base in countries like Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand by mid-2016.

The online platform started in January by Shopclues founder Sandeep Aggarwal prides itself in being the only platform that doesn’t work as a listing platform like other websites in this space but actually enables transaction. It competes with pre-owned car sellers like Mahindra’s First Choice and Maruti Suzuki’s True Value, which sell both offline and online.

Explaining the rationale for foraying into the overseas market, Aggarwal told FE, "There is not a single large online used car buying platform which is global in nature. The six countries put together is one-fifth of India’s used car market, but the internet penetration in them is much higher." Analysts said that the conversion rate on high-value purchase items are lesser in India but is expected to be much higher in international markets.

India has an internet penetration of 12%, while Singapore has 98%, Thailand 78% and Malaysia 66%.

Due to high purchase value with lower volumes, Droom takes an upfront fee of 2% from interested buyers. However, if the buyer doesn’t like the used car after seeing it for real, the money is refunded within 72 hours.

To enter these high-potential markets, Aggarwal has put together a team of 12 people in areas of technology, product management, marketing and business development. A large part of the $20 million Droom raised a few months ago will go into the expansion in these markets.

The company will not have big teams in these countries — just four or five people will be based there — as everything from technology to back-end support will be handled from India. "We will create an Airbnb -and an Uber-like lean model. The launch team will be small and that is how we will expand," said Aggarwal.

Each country will have a separate payment gateway, tax structure, privacy policy, language options and cataloguing.

It’s not that the ride will be smooth for Droom in these markets as in each market there’s local competition. For instance, Malaysia has 11 car marketplaces, Indonesia has 7, Thailand 13, Singapore 4, Philippines 9 and Vietnam a whopping 22.

The company doesn’t see international business overtaking its India business anytime soon. By the end of 2016, revenue from international operations will be 15% of its overall revenue.

Currently, at Rs 20 crore a month and 1,000 transactions a month, Droom’s gross merchandise value (GMV) on an annualised basis is Rs 240 crore. Droom makes 1.5% to 2% of the GMV.

For Droom's founder Sandeep Aggarwal, formerly the co-founder of Shopclues, the exercise achieved two goals. It brought the team closer. And it enabled him to overcome his paranoia about physical contact with people.

"Only twice has some one put cake on my face," Aggarwal says. "I always felt it as encroachment of privacy. Even when I am getting out of a plane, if the person behind me is standing close or pushing me, I get very uncomfortable."

Aggarwal admits that it took him time to realise that in India, on birthdays, if people don't rub cake on your face, the perception is that you don't have good friends.

The cake war comprised 20 teams of four people each.It cost Rs 20,000, with the expense for each member coming to Rs 250.

Aggarwal recalls that when he first discussed the idea with his co-founder Rishab Malik and HR head Babita Viashnawa, they treated it as a joke. "Lot of people couldn't believe we were doing this," Aggarwal says. "Then they couldn't believe that it was to happen right where we work and not in some designated place. Once we announced the cross-functional teams, it was fascinating see ing how they strategised. For instance, one team made gowns and head covers out of garbage bags to protect themselves."

Aggarwal's team bore the brunt of the assault as they were the most exposed. "I was one of the obvious targets and got hit a lot," he says.

After one-and-a-half hours of flinging cake, it was time to clean up. "The place was completely trashed," Aggarwal says. "We cleaned up ourselves."

BEFORE:

AFTER:

According to Aggarwal, people were in office till 11 pm. "It created so much bonding. Some of my team members got emotional and said this was one of the top 10 unique experiences of their professional lives so far."

Early influences

Aggarwal is no stranger to team activities. He recounts two that left an imprint on him. The first was while pursuing an M BA from Washington University, St Louis, in the US.

"The first week they didn't teach us anything," Aggarwal says. "They rented the main park and made us do different tasks together, like a treasure hunt, endurance exercises, etc. It allowed us to know each other in a way we would not have in a normal course."

The other exercise was during his stint with Microsoft. "In Seattle, I did two activities that helped me build lifetime relationships with my team members," Aggarwal says. "Seattle is famous for watching orca whales. So, my department of 60-70 people, we rented a big yacht and spent a day whale watching.We also had lunch at a private island. The other activity was cooking up a dish as a team along with a chef at a culinary institute."

Finally, Aggarwal credits his time working at Silicon Valley, which gave him insight into why these things were important. "We have zero attrition till now. But retaining talent has never been more difficult," he reasons. Importantly, Aggarwal says, Droom's investor, Lightbox, was happy about the cake smashing plan and has encouraged other companies in its portfolio to do something similar.

Aggarwal enjoyed another benefit from the session. Among his sons and their friends, Droom is a hit. "I told my kids about the activity and even asked them to join. They did not join but they shared this with all of their friends and now everyone in my kids' school thinks that Droom is the coolest company in India.Many even told me, `Sandeep uncle, my dad works i n a very boring company.'"

Business leaders who have got it right

Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google have done team building tirelessly, says Aggarwal."They come to office on roller blades. They do lots of activities during Christmas. Even Mark Zuckerberg has done this immensely well. And how they have built pixel by pixel, byte by byte the culture of their company.... The world has produced a lot of great CEOs, but if you are a founder of a company, you also bring your personality and energy. And those are contagious."

Waste of cake, but not time

"Well, if you bring the wast age parameter, I think there is no justification other than accepting that it was a food wastage. But we feel it was offset by healthier minds and bodies. People felt more motivated," he says. He explains that as part of CSR, they do several things, for example, donating a few dozen plants to a blind institute close to Droom's office. "But this budget was allocated for a fun activity and we decided to view it as a fun activity only. Let's just say that instead of eating cake and pastries that we do very of ten as it is, we decided to have a cake fight."

"Nearly 25 percent of the used vehicles sold in India are transitionary sales where a consumer decides to sell to an auto dealer for convenience, distress or emergency. With announcing Quicksell we are taking our services to the next level and emerging as a one stop solution provider. Being India’s first C2B marketplace, Quicksell will intelligently support the consumers and guide through the transactions," says Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Droom.

How it works

Customers can activate their Quicksell listing by paying a flat fee of Rs 199 and then upload details such as model, year, trim/ variant, location, intended period to sell, a short description and photographs of the vehicle.

The platform’s pricing engine will also give pricing suggestions to the customers based on the details input. Once activated by a customer, the listing will be visible to all used car dealers in the platform’s network. These dealers, called pro-sellers, can then give a quotation to the customer, who can choose to either accept or reject the request based on the feasibility. Once a bid is accepted, the dealer would have to make a guarantee payment to confirm the transaction, which would then close the offer to any other dealer.

Sandeep adds that Quicksell ensures that sellers looking to dispose off their automobiles in a hurry get an adequate recompense for their vehicles while also delivering an efficient resolution to their selling requirements. It is his earnest endeavour to provide utmost convenience to our existing and prospective consumers.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom claims that the platform has more than 11, 000 B2C sellers, 16, 000+ products, 6000+ listings and over USD 100 million in listed GMV.

In July this year, it raised $16 million (Rs 100 crore) Series A funding led by Lightbox. The first round of funding for Droom was led by BEENOS. The 95 member team of Droom is distributed between the offices in Gurgaon(India) and Silicon Valley (USA). It’s a mobile-first marketplace with a presence on three platforms — Android, iOS and desktop.

The automobile market in India is worth USD 125 billion which makes it the third largest industry in the world. There’s an increasing demand for used cars spanning two wheelers to luxury cars. According to consultancy and market research firm Frost & Sullivan — last year close to 2.5 million new cars were sold in India while used cars amassed three million sales during the same period.

From entering through the VIP security check to boarding it was all made to feel special. And, indeed I felt likewise. Many of my friends commented, "So much for being a journalist?" Well, not really. For, this could just be for you too, I replied.

Thanks to Droom India, which recently launched its aerial vehicles and fun rides segment, all you need to do is to hire a plane and for an hour or two you could just live the royal way. In the air, I was informed this plane was bought from the Sultan of Brunei. And, so royally engaged I was that I paid not much heed. The 18-seater jet was high on luxury and comfort with cushiony couches and LED screens. And to top it, we were served with the choicest of dishes in our meal.

Enjoying the high flier ride I sat next to the Founder & CEO of Droom Sandeep Aggarwal as he briefed me about his organisation. "We started out from Silicon Valley in April 2014. Droom is India’s first online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and automobile services," he mentioned. "I had first started shopclues.com. We witnessed huge growth and I knew I could do so much more in the online market space. So, I started with sidestepping from shopclues.com though I still am the largest single shareholder of the company and then I came up with Droom," he informed before dishing out several numbers and figures getting into the details of 16 automobile categories, over 1,000 sellers and over 6,000 listings. Clearly, the man knew his data and numbers right. And he was quick to bring it forth. Though, I was quicker to steer our conversation back to the jet.

Yes! The press conference in the air. That was to listen to. But wait! In came the announcement from Captain Rana piloting the plane. And, in response, we all looked down at the scenic hilly tracts of Himachal Pradesh.

Moving around in the aircraft I took seat in almost all the three compartments. And they were all differently put up. Clearly, meant for all occasions. So if you are planning a birthday bash, celebrating your 50 wedding anniversary, or signing a corporate deal it shall take care of you in style.

And, just as I was shuffling around onboard I made a note of how Droom, which is a mix of Vroom and dream, is excited to offer customers anything from a bicycle to a plane.

All that said, Aggarwal promised to expand. And, so the high flier event came to an end. With hope of much more elite services. Just stay tuned as Droom sets you on roll.

Droom, an online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles, will now foray into the aerial vehicle segment and will give its users a chance to buy or sell aerial vehicles such as private planes and choppers from its online portal.

Additionally, Droom is also foraying into the fun rides and experiences category for rental and chartering of private planes and choppers.

"At Droom, we have always endeavoured to provide our consumers with the widest selection and choicest of offerings in the automobile segment. We endeavour to offer a truly holistic and trustworthy experience to our buyers as well as sellers," Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom, said in a statement.

"By partnering with JetSetGo and adding this new category into our list of product offerings, we are poised to leverage the growing spending power of the Indian consumers to provide them with need-based private aviation solutions," Aggarwal said.

The collaboration is likely to "revolutionise the transportation space", according to Kanika Tekriwal, co-founder and CEO, JetSetGo.

Droom is looking to further expand its operations to add 20 automobile and 12 service categories hosting over 50,000 sellers and 200,000 listings in the next 18 to 24 months.

Droom's latest round of funding, led by Lightbox, will be used to expand categories as well as geographies.

By using JetSetGo’s resources, you can buy and sell everything on wheels, right from bicycles to planes on Droom. The company is also expanding and pushing its limits by foraying into the fun rides & experiences category for rental and chartering of private planes and choppers.

As of now, the luxury trips are being offered at Pune, New Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Bangalore locations and the pricing starts from Rs. 1,56,000. It’s experience offerings include birthday parties for children and adults, air culinary, etc. So yeah, you need really a lot of money just lying around of no use to be able to take these services.

The company claims that it is currently the largest online automobile marketplace in India. It has 14 different automobile categories including auto services, with over 10,000 sellers and more than 6,000 listings.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is claimed to be amongst the fastest growing consumer Internet companies in India with more than 9,000 B2C sellers, over 15,000 products, more than 6,000 listings, and over 500k+ downloads for mobile app.

It recently came into news, when a partnership with Uber in Delhi resulted in riders getting to ride in super luxurious cars like Hammer, Lamborghini etc.

Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Droom, commented,

At Droom, we have always endeavored to provide our consumers with the widest selection and choicest of offerings in the automobile segment. We endeavor to offer a truly holistic and trustworthy experience to our buyers as well as sellers. By partnering with JetSetGo and adding this new category into our list of product offerings, we are poised to leverage the growing spending power of the Indian consumers to provide them with need-based private aviation solutions.

Kanika Tekriwal, Co-founder and CEO, JetSetGo, added,

Droom with its disruptive marketplace approach, is one of the most influential players in the Indian automobile market. What I personally love about Droom is that it caters to every segment of society, be it a scooter or a skoda or a lamborgini – Droom is the right way to droooom. What better partnership to have than by two of India’s pioneers in their respective fields. I am confident that the two company’s together will revolutionize the transportation space.

JetSetGo, founded by Kanika Tekriwal and Sudheer Perla in 2013, recently raised an undisclosed amount of sum in its seed funding round from Yuvraj Singh’s YouWeCan Ventures.

Droom on the othe hand, received a much larger $16 million in funding, led by Lightbox Ventures, with participation of Beenos Partners. In the coming 18 to 24 months, Droom is looking to further expand its operations by adding 20 automobile and 12 service categories hosting over 50,000 sellers and 200,000 listings.

Droom on Monday said it would partner with Delhi-based JetSetGo (online marketplace for booking private jets, helicopters and air ambulances) to add aircraft to its buy/sell category.

Droom’s platform will also be available for rental and chartering of private planes and choppers, it said in a statement.

The largest online automobile marketplace in India at present, Droom has product offerings in 14 different automobile categories, including auto services, over 10,000 sellers and more than 6,000 listings.

"The addition of the aerial vehicle segment gives the company the opportunity to tap into the ever-expanding private aviation segments by utilising JetSetGo’s resources," it said.

Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Droom, said with the introduction of the new category, users can now can buy and sell everything on wheels, right from bicycles to planes.

"At Droom, we have always endeavoured to provide our consumers with the widest selection in the automobile segment. By partnering with JetSetGo and adding this new category into our list of product offerings, we are poised to leverage the growing spending power of the Indian consumers to provide them with need-based private aviation solutions," he added.

Backed by venture investors like Lightbox and BEENOS, Droom plans to expand its operations to add 20 automobile and 12 service categories hosting over 50,000 sellers and two lakh listings in the next 18-24 months.

A joint initiative by automobile marketplace Droom and JetSetGo, a marketplace for private jets, has made it possible to buy or rent aircraft online.

Foraying into the aerial vehicle segment, Droom is offering users a chance to buy or sell aerial vehicles such as private planes and choppers from its online portal.

Mobile app

Additionally, users can also download a mobile app to avail these services.

"We believe India is among the top 10 countries when it comes to demand from the aviation sector, and we believe the country will move up to at least fifth position in renting or owning soon. We intend to be an early mover and tap this growing segment," Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Droom, told BusinessLine.

The company’s portal for aeroplane buying and renting was launched today and has listed an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet listed at ₹64.5 crore and a Hawker 900XP corporate jet at ₹45.9 crore for sale. The company, which started as an automobile marketplace in January this year, is offering planes with 9-14 seats and choppers with 4-8 seats.

For every aircraft leased or sold, Droom will get a commission, Aggarwal said. Droom, which at present has more than 10,000 automobile sellers and over 6,000 listings, is also looking to venture into water transportation.

"We will introduce jet skis, speedboats and other modes of water transportation by the first quarter of calendar 2016. Additionally, Droom is also foraying into the fun rides," he added.

In July, Droom, run by Droom Technology, had raised ₹100 crore in fresh funds led by venture capital firm Lightbox.