MIH Group Naspers Arm Buys Majority Stake In Auto Portal Firm Gaadi

MIH Group, a subsidiary of the South African media group Naspers, has acquired a majority stake in Gaadi Web Pvt Ltd, which runs the auto classifieds site Gaadi.com. The deal amount and terms were not disclosed by the company.

Umang Kumar, co-founder, Gaadi Web Pvt Ltd, will take over as CEO from Vivek Pahwa, who will transition to a strategic role. Gaadi Web Pvt Ltd was founded in 2007 by Gurgaon-based Accentium, which also runs SecondShaadi.com, StudyNation.com and sold the social networking site DesiMartini to HT Media's Firefly eVentures.

Gaadi caters to users to buy and sell new and used cars and check pricing as well as conduct used car valuations and discuss them in forums. Its competition is eBay Motors, Autojunction.com, Carwale, Autoindia.com, Carazoo.com, MotorExchange and Zigwheels.com.

The auto classifieds space has seen significant action in the recent past with European multimedia company Axel Springer AG acquiring 52.1% stake in Automotive Exchange Pvt Ltd, the owner of automotive classified ads portal Carwale.com. Besides, online auction portal and classifieds portal MotorExchange raised its second round of funding from Epiphany Ventures and Canaan Partners.

The MIH group runs businesses in Internet platforms, pay-television and related technologies. The group believes there are synergies between Gaadi.com and other MIH properties in classifieds and e-commerce sectors. Within the automobile category, MIH group owns Otomoto.pl in Poland and Auto.mail.ru in Russia.

Nikita Dhingra, M&A-Head, MIH Internet India, said, "We are happy to welcome Gaadi Web Pvt Ltd. to the MIH family. Gaadi.com has demonstrated early traction in terms of traffic and revenue in the auto vertical backed by an excellent team."

"We will leverage MIH's global expertise in the internet and automobile classifieds space to grow the business. We are seeing growth in traffic and revenues, and we would look at pushing this growth to even higher levels with the partnership. The online auto sector as a whole grew by more than 70% last year, and solid business models are emerging both in the new cars and used cars front," said Umang Kumar, CEO, Gaadi Web Pvt Ltd.

The company would not disclose the investment planned in the website. "This partnership with one of the largest Internet groups in the world is just what Gaadi needs to push itself to the next threshold in leadership," said Pahwa. When contacted by VCCircle, he did not disclose statistics of its userbase, transactions, dealers and manufacturers listed. The company claims it is the second largest auto site in India by revenues.