Reportedly Receives Series A Funding, Moladin Reaches Centaur Status

Moladin is reported to have secured series A funding worth $42 million or the equivalent of 601.5 billion Rupiah. According to data submitted to regulators, Sequoia Capital India and Northstar Group are involved in leading this funding.

Previous investors include East Ventures and Global Founder Capital. With the fresh funds obtained, it is claimed that the company’s valuation has reached $231 million or equivalent to 3.3 trillion Rupiah.

The news about this fundraising has actually been detected since the middle of 2021. The last round was officially announced by Moladin in January 2020 in pre-series A.

Molaldin is founded in 2017 and led by Jovin Hoon and Mario Tanamas. Initially the platform was established to bridge the need for buying new and used motorcycles.

It’s just that now they have shifted their focus to buying and selling used cars. In fact, there is no “Motor” menu anymore on their site. Moladin’s entry into this business has further added to the competitive map of the car marketplace, which has recently taken the public’s attention.

It is known that two platforms from neighboring countries Carro and Carsome have reached the unicorn milestone – both of them also have a fairly strong business base in Indonesia.

Big Market

In the first half of 2021, OLX Autos said its used car transactions on its platform had surpassed $1 billion globally. OLX Autos itself has been operating since January 2020.

According to research conducted by the company, the impact of Covid-19 is still giving a positive trend to the used car buying and selling industry in Indonesia. Even during the pandemic, the general demand for used car products can still increase by 15-20%.

Likewise the data submitted by Carro. Until Q3 2021, they saw an 11x increase in transactions. For its business units in Indonesia, 45.87% of transactions are made online with users from Greater Jakarta being the main contributor to sales.

So far, used car sales services are still centralized in the offline business. The services of Moladin, Carro and others are trying to democratize the process. Not only providing listing services, their infrastructure also includes financing.

The business model applied is also comprehensive through C2B2C – buying cars from users, then selling them either to dealers using an auction system or directly to consumers through the website.

Moladin’s Journey

Since launching, Moladin has received initial funding support from East Ventures and a number of other investors. Their initial service is the purchase of motorbikes for users who live in the Jabodetabek, Banten, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Solo, and Semarang areas.

The $1.2 funding that was obtained at that time was also focused on regional expansion and strengthening aspects of business partnerships with dealers and leasing companies in various regions.

At that time, until mid-2018, the motorcycle sales business still found very attractive traction. The company claims to experience sales growth of 20-30% per month, with a total transaction value of more than $1 million.

In 2019, Moladin also said that he had succeeded in doubling the GMV from the previous year. They managed to add 8000 used motorcycle listings in their system, including 8 times growth in app usage.

Moladin also introduced new products such as auto mortgage loans to make it easier for users who need options to get their motorbikes. Then in early January 2020 East Ventures again led the funding for Moladin in the pre-series A round.

Funding is still focused on strengthening its position in the industry by strengthening its business and expansion. Until finally in 20121, Moladin began to switch from motorcycle products to used cars.

It will be interesting to wait for Moladin’s next strategy design with his new business model. Moreover, he will directly face players who in fact already have great power.