Moladin Reportedly Secured Series A Funding, Listed as Centaur with 3.3 Trilllion Rupiah Valuation

Moladin reportedly secured series A funding worth of $42 million or equivalent to 601.5 billion Rupiah. Based on regulators' data, Sequoia Capital India and Northstar Group are leading this round. Also participated some previous investors, including East Ventures and Global Founder Capital. With the additional fresh funds, the company's valuation is said to reach $231 million or equivalent to 3.3 trillion Rupiah.

In fact, this fundraising has been rumored since mid 2021. Moladin officially announced the latest round in January 2020.

Was founded in 2017, Molaldin is led by Jovin Hoon and Mario Tanamas. The platform aims to cater the purchasing of new and used motorcycles. To date, they are shifting focus to the used cars business. In fact, the "Motor" (Bike) menu is already vanished.

Moladin's penetration brough a new crowd to the car marketplace competition, which recently taken the public's attention. It is known that the two neighbor platforms Carro and Carsome have reached the unicorn status – both have a fairly strong business base in Indonesia. Prior to this, there is also BeliMobilGue which was rebranded into OLX Autos.

Potential market

In the first half of 2021, OLX Autos confirmed the business transactions on its platform had surpassed $1 billion globally. The company alone has started operating since January 2020. According to the company research, the positive trend for used car industry remains after the Covid-19 pandemic hits the country. Even during the pandemic, the general demand for used car products still increase by 15-20%.

It is likewise to the data compiled by Carro. Until Q3 2021, they observe an 11x increase in transactions. For its business units in Indonesia, 45.87% of transactions are proceed online with most users come from Greater Jakarta.

To date, used car sales services are centralized in the offline business. Moladin, Carro and other services are trying to democratize the process. Not only listing, the infrastructure also provide financing. The business model applied is comprehensive through C2B2C – buying cars from users, then selling them either to dealers using an auction system or directly to consumers through the website.

Moladin's journey

Since its  launching, Moladin has been backed with seed funding from East Ventures and some other investors. The initial service is two-wheeler sales for users in the Jabodetabek, Banten, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Solo, and Semarang areas. Then, the $1.2 funding was focused on regional expansion and strengthening business partnerships with dealers and leasing companies in various regions.

Back then, until mid-2018, the motorcycle business still found very attractive traction. Moladin claims to experience sales growth of 20-30% per month with a total transaction value of more than $1 million.

In 2019, Moladin also claimed to have succeeded in doubling the GMV from the previous year. They managed to add 8000 used motorcycle listings in its system, including 8 times growth in app usage. Moladin also introduced new products such as auto mortgage loans to facilitate users with options to buy motorcycle.

In early January 2020, East Ventures led another funding for Moladin in the pre-series A round. Funding is to be focused on strengthening business and expansion to fixed its position in the industry.

Until in 2021, Moladin started to shift from motorcycle to used cars. We had sent inquiries about business developments and funding confirmation, however, Moladin is yet to accept interviews from the media in the near future.

It will be interesting to wait for Moladin's next strategy with this new business model. Moreover, the company will directly compete with such powerful players.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian