CredR, a new startup by young entrepreneurs from IIT Mumbai and Stanford University with operations in Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune, has entered the decades old pre-owned vehicles market by offering never heard before features such as free Inspection on 80+ parameters of the bike, test rides at the home of the buyer, a 6-month warranty, 1-year roadside assistance and an advanced algorithm to determine fair price.
In a span of only 4 months since set up of operations, CredR is now operational in 3 cities: Mumbai, Bengaluru and Pune and has sold more than 1000 bikes registering month-on-month growth of 300%. The startup receives 1000 requests in a day to buy/sell pre-owned automobiles. With over 180 employees currently, CredR’s plans include expanding to the 10 most “automobile-crazy” cities in the coming months followed by a pan-India presence.
Strengthening up technology and operations, CredR has been in advanced talks of Institutional Funding hoping to close in next few weeks.
More than 12 million pre-owned two-wheelers are sold in India each year, with the value of the market estimated to be $8 - $12 billion.
CredR’s journey began when Sumit Chhazed, one of the co-founders, who had previously successfully led 2 startups, faced the issue of buying pre-owned vehicle for his daily commute. This led him to solve this pain point with his fellow IIT-Mumbai 2012 batch mates, Nikhil Jain, Nittin Mittal and Stanford alumni Shiv Agrawal.
Speaking from his own experience, Sumit Chhazed, Founder said, “CredR’s purpose is to revolutionize the pre-owned automobile industry in India by coupling Trust, Convenience and Transparency by leveraging technology.”
Elaborating the pain points of buyers and sellers in the pre-owned market in India, Chhazed said: “Even today, selling or buying second hand goods involves lots of hassles and lack of trust. No one stands to add to the credibility of second hand goods or gives after sales services needed in categories like bikes and cars.“
“Our first focus at CredR is to change the age old perception about pre-owned vehicles. We want to make the transactional process as smooth and hassle-free as making a firsthand purchase at a showroom. The vision is to make the platform so technologically robust that it becomes a de-facto standard for buying/selling pre-owned automobiles and for assessing fair value of a pre-owned vehicle.” said Nikhil Jain, Co-Founder, CredR.
CredR is invested and advised by serial entrepreneur, K Ganesh’s entrepreneurship platform, GrowthStory. GrowthStory has previously promoted other category leaders including BigBasket(e-grocery), Portea Medical (home healthcare), BlueStone (e-jewellery), HomeLane (home furnishing) and FreshMenu (Food Tech).
“The level of convenience, transparency, security and price guarantees that CredR offers isunheard of in the pre-owned vehicles market in India. CredR’s full stack service leveraging mobile, internet and technologywill organize what is a hugely unorganized category; it is the next big frontier in business models focused on vertical market places,” said K Ganesh, Partner – GrowthStory.
CredR’s website receives approximately 4 lakh visitors every month. The company has a 20,000+ strong Facebook community. After consolidating its position in the used bikes segment, CredR will diversify into the premium bikes and cars segment and is aiming to become the market leader in India in all the areas in which it operates.
About Founders – CredR:
Sumit, Nikhil and Nittin are IIT Bombay alumni and have worked closely since their days at the institute, on various social and business projects. Their earlier entrepreneurial ventures include a Solar Energy project, which was merged with another company, and an online, educational product, which was acquired by a Silicon Valley based company in 2013. Together, they make a mix of crazy creative energy, astute sales experience and critical business wisdom, gained through previous start-up successes.
Photo Caption: CredR Cofounders ; Nittin, Sumit and Nikhil
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