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ONLINE car buying and selling marketplace carwow has raised $55 million (£41.4 million) to invest in its Sell Your Car service following six months of rapid growth since launch.

Created following the acquisition of Wizzle in June 2021,the service has become one of the top sources of used car stock for the UK car trade in just six months from launch, with an average of 900 cars listed on the platform each day.

Sell Your Car works by consumers listing their car and inviting dealers to bid and buy it directly from them, with all offers including the vehicle collection costs.

Having increased monthly revenues for Sell Your Car by 600% since making the service available to its nine million existing UK users, carwow plans to invest in technology and platform development, international expansion and user growth.

Over 150 roles in the division will be created over the next 12 months, adding to the existing team of 350.

carwow founder and Chief Executive, James Hind said: “The size of our customer base and reach of our brand gives us a significant platform for growth advantage, but this latest investment will help supercharge our service and experience on all fronts.

“In just three months, we hit our first target of 7,000 live listings and have helped sell £200 million worth of cars in the first six months. All this has been achieved so rapidly by just leveraging what already exists within carwow; our huge reach via content, our great relationship with dealers and our in-house technology. We now plan to use part of the additional funding to advertise Sell Your Car to all car owners.

“With great results and learnings in the UK, we’ve begun testing in Germany. Ultimately our aims are global – just like the rest of the carwow business.”

The investment, coming in the form of venture debt from Hercules Capital, follows a year of strong performance across the rest of the carwow business, which saw revenues increase 60%, year-on-year, despite the challenges faced in the new car market.

 

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