According to foreign media techcrunch, sylndr, an online used car retailer headquartered in Cairo, Egypt, recently announced that it had received a round of pre seed financing of US $12.6 million, led by Saudi early venture capital company raed ventures, and followed by algebra ventures, Nuwa capital, 1984 ventures, global founders capital and a group of angel investors.
The picture is cut from the official website of the enterprise
Egypt has a huge used car market. The survey shows that among the more than 6 million cars driving on Egyptian roads, the ratio of used cars to new cars is about 3:1. Recently, a large number of start-ups focusing on digital used car trading have emerged around the world, hoping to redefine used car sales, including "cazoo" in the UK, "cars24" and "spinny" in India, "instacarro" in Brazil and "kavak" in Mexico.
"Sylndr" is one of the new players in the market. It was jointly founded by AMR Mazen and El defrawy in November 2021 to help users sell or buy used cars. In emerging markets such as Egypt, well-known brands such as GB auto, Mansour automotive and Nissan usually have good resale value.
Omar El defrawy, co-founder and CEO, said in an interview: "the main problem we are trying to solve is the complete mistrust between buyers and sellers in the used car market. Our vision is to become the most trusted used car retailer in Egypt and surrounding areas."
Sylndr's business model imitates India's "cars24", which buys cars from car owners at an agreed price, renovates and resells them. In addition, the company also provides customers with seven day refund guarantee, warranty and flexible financing scheme. Mazen said that the company plans to officially launch the list of cars on sale in the fourth quarter of this year or the first quarter of 2023.
The refurbished cars on "sylndr" are more expensive than those on its competitors "OLX" and "contactcars". However, the CEO stressed that sylndr offered a "fair and competitive price" and that consumers still prefer the company's used cars considering product quality and delivery speed.
The picture is cut from the official website of the enterprise
"It's not a matter of rising prices, it's a matter of paying for value. What consumers want is to make the money really valuable. Customers often refurbish their own used cars, but obviously many of them have no experience," El defrawy said
Sylndr plans to generate revenue through retail, auction, dealer and B2B sales. In addition, El defrawy said that the company may also expand other sources of income, such as car loan interest, insurance, roadside rescue fees or other value-added services. "We hope to continue to develop in the process of moving forward," he said
Before starting "sylndr", El defrawy worked as an investment banker at "EFG Hermes" and later as CFO of "elmenus", a food distribution startup in Egypt. Mazen has worked in food distribution and e-commerce companies such as souq.com, hello fresh and cazoo.
In recent years, the transaction scale of China's second-hand car market has been growing. According to the data of China Automobile Circulation Association, the trading volume of second-hand cars in China showed an increasing trend year by year from 2012 to 2019. Affected by the epidemic in 2020, the trading volume of second-hand cars decreased. In 2020, the trading volume of China's second-hand car market was 14.34 million, a year-on-year decrease of 3.91%. From January to December 2021, the trading volume of China's second-hand car market reached 17.5851 million, a cumulative increase of 22.62%.
In China, the business model of second-hand car chain largely uses the brand effect to expand the market, and the emerging business model of second-hand car chain is gradually heating up in China's second-hand car market. At present, the second-hand car chain operation mode mainly includes three development types: Direct chain, network chain and franchise chain.
