The online used car marketplace, Cars24 has inked a sponsorship deal with the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), according to SportMint sources. In this association, Cars24 has been appointed as the team’s principal and front-of-shirt sponsor.
The agreement is reportedly in the range of Rs 15 crore per year for the upcoming three editions.
Cars24 was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana, India and has been selling more than 1,50,000 cars yearly. The firm’s parent company is the Global Car Group.
In the Series A and Series B rounds combined, Cars24 raised US$50 million. The company raised US$50 million in a Series C round of funding in 2018. In the Series D round in 2019, the entity gathered US$100 million. The organization’s investors include KCK, Unbound, Moore Strategic Ventures, Kingsway Capital and DST Global. The online used car marketplace received US$200 million in 2020 in the Series E round and became a unicorn startup with a valuation of over $1 billion. In the previous month, Cars24 closed a $400 million round of funding that includes a $300 million Series G equity round along with $100 million debt from several financial institutions. The current valuation of the firm is $3.3 billion.
The company received an investment from the former Indian captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the Series D round of funding, who also became the company’s brand ambassador. Apart from Dhoni, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Boman Irani and Mandira Bedi have endorsed the company in several commercial ads.
With Cars24 becoming one of the sponsors of SRH, it is the first time that a company from the used car category has sponsored an IPL team.
In the used car category sector, Cars24 faces competition from some of the popular names in the industry, Spinny, CarDekho, OLX Autos and CarTrade.
Spinny entered the unicorn club with a $1.8 billion valuation after receiving $283 million in the Series E round of funding. CarDekho raised $250 million in a pre-IPO round and acquired the unicorn status with a valuation of $1.2 billion. In August, OLX Autos crossed the milestone of $1 billion in sales.
On the other end, Sunriers Hyderabad has retained their skipper Kane Williamson (Rs 14 crore), Abdul Samad (Rs 4 crore) and Umran Malik (Rs 4 crore) in the IPL 2022 retention. SRH announced Dale Steyn as the bowling coach, Brian Lara as the batting coach and Simon Katich as the fielding coach and a scout in the team ahead of the IPL 2022.