RajaMobil Automotive Marketplace Receives First External Funding Led by Ideosource

Automotive Marketplace KingCar announced the acquisition of initial external funding, for an undisclosed amount, led by Ideosource. Involved in the funding this time another venture capital company Stellar Capital, along with several names of individual investors TP Rachmat from Triputra Group, Boy Thohir, Fatimah Kalla, and Erick Thohir through Beyond Media (Mahaka Group). TP Rachmat and Boy Thohir will be included in the Advisor Board at RajaMobil.

Apart from these names, Assa Rent, Nasmoco, and several other automotive companies are also said to have participated in this fundraising. RajaMobil also has the support of a consortium of several well-known car dealers who are interested in investing their capital.

"Over the last two years we have developed RajaMobil specifically for new cars. Because we focus on playing in the vertical sector, the traction is good enough to attract fresh funding led by Ideosource. This is our first external funding and don't call it early stage, pre-series A or others," said RajaMobil CEO Dien Wong, Wednesday (6/9).

He continued that the majority of this fresh funding will be used to intensify aggressive marketing strategies and develop products to be more accepted by the public.

The network of investors who are mostly involved in the automotive world is expected to become ammunition for the company to strengthen its position in the country. This is at the same time realizing the national sales contribution target to 1% from the previous 0,1%.

As an illustration, last year's total sales of new cars nationally reached the range of Rp. 200 trillion. From this figure, RajaMobil claims to have contributed 0,1% by selling 1.000 units. By taking the average car price at IDR 200 million, RajaMobil has contributed more than IDR 200 billion.

"Anyone who can dominate the digital automotive market will feel the results when the behavior of buying cars through digital platforms becomes commonplace. The car market is a market that is worth more than IDR 200 trillion per year, a market that has not been explored by many digital players."

This marketplace is actually a change in strategy that the company has chosen since it was first pioneered in 2012. RajaMobil itself was originally a special site for selling used cars, then pivoted in 2015 with a focus on becoming a new car marketplace.

"For used cars it's actually still in RajaMobil, but the shape is listing. We are no longer focused there. Now we are developing a marketplace for new cars," said RajaMobil Chairman Robert Wardhana.

Currently RajaMobil has partnered with 800 Dealer which has more than 5 thousand salespeople. In addition to the marketplace, the services available at RajaMobil include: sales toolkit and CRM toolkits.

The business model adopted is still using dealers tohandle sales, has not made the site as a transaction medium. RajaMobil can only be accessed through desktop and mobile sites, and does not yet provide an application.