Droom, an online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles, is preparing to list on the Nasdaq exchange in the second half of 2020, its founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told FE Online. “Exact timing, how much capital we will raise etc., will be decided in nine months before the planned listing. We are working with some bankers as well for this,” Aggarwal said.
Droom is currently touching close to $1 billion in annualized GMV (gross merchandise volume) and $23 million in net revenue. Also, the company has controlled its monthly net burn to $1.2 million with a monthly GMV of close to $75 million. “We are aiming annualized GMV of $3 billion and net revenue of $110-120 million before listing,” said Aggarwal.
“Our business model has exhibited a very high amount of operating leverage which means that with scale our cost structure doesn’t change much. When we were doing $15 million in monthly GMV, we were still burning $1.2 million to run the company,” he added.
The public listing would also give 150 of 360 employees at Droom having stock option to convert their sweat equity into capital. Droom is also active hiring across multiple positions. “In the next four months, we want to be a 500-people company.”
Meanwhile, Aggarwal is pushing Droom’s overseas expansion with Malaysia in November this year, Singapore in December and Thailand in January 2019. “By end of 2019 will be available in total nine countries including Vietnam, Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar,” Aggarwal said.
Over the years, apart from Droom, multiple Indian startups including Flipkart, InMobi, Grofers, Freshworks, Druva, Grey Orange, Crayon Data have moved outside India for better fundraising, listing, and tax environment. “A Singapore-based company can be listed on Nasdaq whereas if you are based in India then you have to list on one of the Indian stock exchanges to list outside India,” Aggarwal stated.
The company has overall raised $125 million in six rounds of investments and is valued approximately $550 million. Droom might raise a round of around $100-150 million in 2019 in a pre-IPO round to expand its market share, global presence and invest in technology and infrastructure, added Aggarwal.
