1. Niraj Singh had the most raving academic report card. Coming from a small town – Daltonganj, Jharkhand, He had topped his school, cleared the IIT exam two times and joined IIT Delhi. He never had any room for failure. And then 2011 came in. 👇
2.His two startups shut down by 2014. Suddenly, a boy who had not seen failures had seen two back-to-back ones. His father supported him, but he also passed away. He had to do something to survive.
3. While thinking, He realised that the Car is one of the biggest aspirations in people’s lives. However, limited income early on pushes people to buy second-hand options. That market lacked quality, accountability and trust. Niraj wanted to solve that. In 2015, Spinny was born. 🚀
4. The idea was simple ⏩Give the same experience of buying a first car in a second-hand one. Niraj started by helping customers sell to other customers through verified car listings and process monitoring. The idea took off and by 2016, Spinny sold 350 cars worth 14 CR. 🙌
5. Seeing the early success, Blume Ventures invested 7 CR, and Spinny expanded in Delhi NCR and Bangalore. The 5-day money-back guarantee and one-year warranty plan became a super hit. Spinny sold over 900 cars in 2017 but Niraj soon realised the fault in the model. 🤔
6. Customers were buying cars out of need and no real value. Spinny was in losses of 6.3 CR and had exhausted all the funds. In the meantime, competitors like Cars24 and CarDekho raised 150 CR and 450 CR, respectively. Neeraj had to pivot to a full stack model to survive in the market.
7. And he did. But then another problem came up ⏩ Salaries of 75 employees. Niraj did not have funds so he mortgaged his house. As a result, sales dropped by half to 480 Cars in 2018. When it was game over, the customers saw the long-term value in buying from Spinny directly, and the model finally picked up. 🙌
8. Spinny grew massively and sold 3750 cars by 2020. It raised 270 CR and entered five cities but was still tiny against the 8000 CR Cars24 in 130 cities. Neeraj knew that he had to refurbish the cars before selling them and enter in luxury cars to increase margins. So, he pivoted again in 2021.
9. The new model picked up too, and Spinny sold 7200 Cars in the same year. Even the first wave of COVID could not stop them as Niraj switched to contactless buying and home deliveries with fixed quality assurances. Finally, more money came in as Spinny raised 1200 CR from giants like Tiger Global and General Catalyst. 💸
10. Spinny expanded to eight new cities with 15 car hubs. By November 2021, it sold 20,000 Cars and raised 2000 CR. Finally, the moment had come. Spinny became a unicorn with a valuation of 12,000 CR. 🦄
11. Today, Spinny has a revenue of 3000 CR and a valuation of a whopping 14,500 CR. Last year, it sold 66,564 cars and operated 36 Car Hubs in 15 cities.