Droom to raise $200 mn in pre-IPO round

Droom Technology Private Ltd., a marketplace for used cars, bikes and other mobility products, is planning to raise $200 million in pre-initial public offering (IPO) round to invest in growth plans, said founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal. “The company is no longer dependent on outside capital to run its operation, but new initiatives will require larger capital. So, we on opportunistic basis are looking at upto $200 million growth round which will be our last private round before the company goes public,” Mr. Aggarwal said. Of the planned $200 million, Droom had already raised some capital, he said and added that the company would go public within 6 to 18 months.

“The company has spent last five months to become IPO ready. We are following our dual track — U.S. listing at Nasdaq and also to be listed in India. In six to 18 months, we should be a public company,” Mr. Aggarwal said.

“And unless I make a series of mistakes or get unlucky, I think without any glass ceiling, I have an opportunity to create perhaps the largest consumer Internet company coming out of India, which could be around $50 billion by 2026,” he added.

He said currently the company does $1.7 billion in annual run rate of GMV. “We are doing around $54 million in annual run rate of net revenue. This year, we should be able to do $2 billion in GMV and close to $65 to $70 million in net revenue. In the long run, from India alone, the company should be able to do $20 billion in GMV by 2025,” he added. Till the current round, the company has raised about $125 million from 6-7 different rounds of capital from some marquee investors, he said.

The company is investing to build its mid and last-mile technology solutions to transform the car buying experience. It is planning to utilise its platform for auto loans and insurance. Droom is expanding internationally to Indonesia. “Before COVID, it had opened offices in Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia,” he said.

He claimed litigations in the U.S. prevented him from unleashing his full potential.

“I was lucky and blessed to get a second chance. The two unicorns [ShopClues and Droom] I have built spent the least amount of money to become a unicorn. This is mentioned in the Morgan Stanley report and a lot of other places,” Mr. Aggarwal said.

Mr Aggarwal, a former equity research analyst in the U.S., was arrested in 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on insider trading charges. He had pleaded guilty and was as well as waiting for conviction. However, he said, the case got over three months prior to COVID after the U.S. Department of Justice dropped all charges, which meant the case got dismissed.

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