IPO-bound CARS24 sees high-profile exits

Pre-owned e-commerce platform CARS24 on Monday saw some high-profile exits, including its global CTO Jitendra Agrawal and business head Kingshuk Sanyal who have left the company to pursue other things.

In a LinkedIn post, Agrawal who joined the company in July 2021, said he will be moving on from CARS24 in the next few months.

"I joined CARS24 with a specific goal to help the team scale multiple countries at once - a particularly challenging task because, as an eCommerce company with complex execution, we built each country like an independent startup. We also did it all at once," he said.

"I will be forever attached to this mission of helping consumers experience a delightful way of buying and selling cars, and wish the team the very best in scaling new heights," Agrawal added.

CARS24 Chief human resources officer Mrinal Sinha has also put in papers.

The used car marketplace, set for an IPO, in May announced that around 600 employees were let go based on their poor performance and not owing to any "cost cuts".

Calling it "business as usual", the company, which has nearly 9,000-strong workforce, and is in the process of hiring more globally, said its business is actually growing in India, the Middle East, Australia, and Southeast Asia.

"This is business as usual as these are performance-linked exits that happen every year," the company said in a statement.

In December last year, CARS24 closed a $400 million round of funding, including a $300 million Series G equity round alongside $100 million debt from diversified financial institutions.

The platform was valued at $3.3 billion, about double the valuation from its previous round in September 2021.

The company recently announced the launch of seven `Mega Refurbishment Labs` (MRLs) in India -- an industry first, and one MRL in the UAE which is among Dubai`s largest ever commercial leasing deals.

"CARS24 has aggressive plans for 2022. We are witnessing greater acceptance amongst customers across the globe for our platform when purchasing their next car," Vikram Chopra, Co-founder & CEO, CARS24 had said.