Carlist.my secures US$13.5mil investment from Australia’s carsales.com

By Digital News Asia March 18, 2013

Describes it as largest online deal in Asean this year
Investment will go to developing technology platform and broadening brand presence

Carlist.my secures US$13.5mil investment from Australia’s carsales.com KUALA LUMPUR-based iCar Asia said it has secured a RM42.2-million (US$13.5-million) strategic investment from Australia’s carsales.com Ltd for its local automotive classifieds site Carlist.my, calling it the largest online deal in Asean this year.

Both iCar and carsales are listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). The latter operates operates carsales.com.au, which it claims is Australia's number one automotive classified website.

In a market where most car buyers visit an average of 11 websites prior to making a purchase decision (Accenture, 2013), this investment strengthens Carlist.my’s ability and commitment to become the largest and most trusted car site in the nation, iCar said in a statement.

“The RM42.2 million investment will go to developing our technology platform and broadening our brand presence in becoming the only online destination a car buyer or seller would need to visit,” said iCar chief executive officer Damon Rielly (pic).

“Furthermore, this will also promote opportunities for strategic collaboration between the companies; leveraging and applying the experience and technical expertise of one of the world’s most comprehensive online automotive businesses to the local market; allowing us to go further in supporting the needs of the automotive industry,” he added.

iCar claimed that as of Feb 28, Carlist.my had more than 3,000 dealers on its site and about 108,488 listings, which represented a 202% growth over July 2012. Citing Effective Measure, it said that it had 517,816 unique visitors (growth of over 187% in two years) and more than 5.6 million pageviews per month.

“We fully welcome this strategic investment alliance as it will allow us to ramp up our aggressive growth and further strengthen our offerings to our customers and users alike,” said Rielly.

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