CarTrade acquires Adroit Inspection

MSC Solutions, which owns online automobile classifieds platform CarTrade, has acquired vehicle inspection in an all-cash deal more than a year after buying rival CarWale.

The acquisition was made about three months after the Mumbai-based company raised $55 million in a fresh round of funding co-led by its existing backer Temasek and a US-based family office, whose name was not disclosed. Adroit Inspection is the country’s largest auto inspection company and is expected to inspect 1 Million vehicles this year.

Adroit Inspection undertakes inspection and valuation of automobiles for clients including banks, insurance companies, and non-banking finance companies. Adroit Inspection claims to have over 300 inspectors across the country. In November 2015, it acquired rival CarWale from German media conglomerate Axel Springer for an estimated $90-$100 million, a transaction primarily funded by its $145million equity financing round led by Temasek Holdings, the government of Singapore-owned Investment Company, US-based investment firm March Capital and Warburg Pincus.

CarDekho, which is backed by Hillhouse Capital, Google Capital, and Sequoia Capital, has made about nine acquisitions over two years. According to industry estimates, India's automobile sector, including services, is the third-largest in the world, valued at about $125 billion, and is expected to touch $250 billion by 2020. The online segment currently contributes less than 1% to the overall figure and is expected to expand to 8% over three to four years. 

Go-Jek acquires Pianta

Go-Jek, the Indonesian ride-hailing service backed by Sequoia Capital, KKR & Co and Warburg Pincus, has acquired Bangalore based health care marketplace Pianta, its third acquisition in India. The purchase is aimed at beefing up its engineering team in India, which is focused on product innovation and mining data to better serve Go-Jek customers in Indonesia.

Go-Jek, which introduced a mobile app in January 2015 to provide motorcycle rides on demand, raised more than $550 Million in a round of funding in August to compete with Uber Technologies Inc. and Grab, two private car hailing startups that have begun two wheeled services on its home turf.

Go-Jek has become one of the most popular ways to get around in Indonesia, especially in traffic snarled cities like Jakarta. The company has branched out to other services, including food delivery, same-day delivery, grocery shopping and household cleaning. In April, it introduced an e-wallet service called Go-Pay to enable payments across its diverse services.

Pianta, which helps customers find and make appointments with healthcare providers, was founded in 2015. Go-Jek has acquired two other Indian startups in the past to bolster its engineering ranks. Grab, Go-Jek rival in Indonesia, raised $750 Million this month from Investors including Softbank Group Corp.

Quikr India acquires Zapluk

Online classifieds portal Quikr India Pvt. Ltd has acquired on-demand beauty and wellness services provider Zapluk (ZapForce Technologies Pvt. Ltd) for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition of Hyderabad based Zapluk which had raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from a clutch of investors, comes three months after Quikr India acquired Gurgaon based on demand beauty service provider Salosa.

Quikr India rebranded its home beauty service as AtHomeDiva in July. The acquisition of Zapluk is expected to strengthen Quikr home beauty services, which have now been rolled out to Bengaluru, New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Gurgaon and Hyderabad. The home beauty services are part of QuikrServices, one of the five verticals identified by Quikr last year to grow revenue.

Quikr is focusing on five key business segments – automobiles, real estate, jobs, services and customer to customer sales. It has identified as new sources of revenue and fends off competition from other venture capital backed businesses that have emerged in each of these categories. Zapluk was founded in August 2015. The firm had acquired Chennai based competitor Pamperazi in June this year.

The company has been investing aggressively to build the five verticals it has identified by both acquiring start-ups and making strategic investments, especially in real-estate segment. Quikr has so far raised $346 Million from investors such as Tiger Global Management, Warburg Pincus and Norwest Venture Partners, among others and is currently valued at $1.5 Billion.