Spotawheel is a startup working in Greece and Poland with a car dealership model which is pretty similar to Carvana in the U.S. It has raised €5 million in new funding.
Spotawheel’s Investments
The latest round was supported by the online used car dealership, Venture Friends, which started the round, with the support from Velocity Partners and prominent unnamed investors.
This investment included both equity and debt financing because a part of Spotawheel’s business involves buying used cars upfront.
It makes the total funds allocated by the Athens-headquartered startup to €8 million since its launching in 2016.
Spotawheel’s Business Model
Spotawheel co-founder and CEO, Charis Arvanitis stated that used cars are one of the biggest markets in global value rising at a 5-7% rate yearly. Even then, it is still operating primarily offline in a particularly non-transparent way.
Arvanitis also said that the shortage of centralized control on the industry’s seller structure had stopped any significant innovation over the past 20 years.
This dilemma is even more visible in Europe, where car deals run between countries, which makes it much harder to manage the quality and trace the car’s history.
To solve this problem, Spotawheel gives an online B2C platform for used cars that the CEO says it has been redesigned for the buy-sell process from scratch.
The idea is to build a frictionless and trusted buying experience to bring e-commerce levels of comfort and security to buy a used car.
He says that customers can opt-in for a test drive or have the car sent anywhere in the country. They also support a 7-day return policy while experiencing up to 5 years of limited warranty, which is the highest in Europe.
This is justified by Spotawheel’s predictive analytics reporting the situation and expected failures on a per car basis.
In addition to this, Arvanitis explains further that Spotawheel’s car sourcing design merges both with debt-financed and marketplace methods.
This allows the startup to source the best cars from private owners and B2B resellers all across Europe.
The also includes using working capital to acquire vehicles upfront or through a commission-based agreement.
SEE ALSO: Urbvan, Private Shuttle Service, Raises $9 Million
For more information on the latest tech news, keep reading iTMunch
Image Courtesy: Spotawheel
