By Abhay Ray 
Introduction
Launching a startup from a Tier 2 city and scaling it up to a billion-dollar business is not easy. But brothers Amit Jain, 49 and Anurag Jain, 47, dreamt of it way back in 2008 and launched CarDekho from their hometown, Jaipur. It all started in 2005 when Shark Tank fame Amit Jain, now CEO and co-founder of CarDekho was transferred to Bengaluru from Austin by Trilogy, a Texas-based company where he was working as a senior associate. Anurag was also in Bengaluru around that time, working at Sabre Holdings. The brothers, both alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi and Jaipur’s St Xavier’s School, were always inclined towards academics and tech.
About CarDekho
CarDekho, a creation of ‘GirnarSoft’ founded by Amit and Anurag Jain, stands as a comprehensive online platform dedicated to all things automotive. Both the web app and the CarDekho.com website house a wealth of rich automotive content. This includes expert reviews, detailed specifications, pricing information, and car comparisons, as well as an extensive collection of pictures and videos covering a diverse array of car brands and models available in India.
Furthermore, CarDekho provides valuable insights into the automobile industry, ensuring users stay updated with fresh content, recent launches, and industry trends.
CarDekho – How it Works ?
CarDekho offers consumers a smooth 360-degree experience by acting as a virtual auto dealer. Users of the platform can peruse through a number of categories, future autos, and new releases. Furthermore, CarDekho has its own online store with a large selection of automobile accessories, including sun films, car stereos, stickers, floor mats, and more. In addition, it also provide car loan for new car used car and refinances for the existing car. Company maintains an active automotive forum where industry professionals and reviewers respond to user-posted questions about cars in an effort to promote community involvement. In general, CarDekho creates a comprehensive and effective automobile platform by fusing technological know-how with user-friendly interfaces.
CarDekho is the product of ‘GirnarSoft’ owned by the founder duo, Amit and Anurag Jain. CarDekho is a web app that has almost anything and everything about an automobile. Both the app and the CarDekho.com website boast rich automotive content including but not limited to expert reviews, detailed specs, and prices of cars, comparisons of cars, pictures, and videos of an exhausting range of car brands and models available in India.
Creating CarDekho to Solve Information Gaps
It was in 2008 that Amit and Anurag experienced the eureka moment when they visited the Delhi Auto Expo as part of their plan to buy a car. But the car search exposed them to a lot of gaps. There was no consolidated information on automobiles in one place.
“There were only brochures from different places. Hunting a car was a painful process. So, immediately after coming back from the auto expo, we decided to code a website and put the catalogue online,” he says. In no time, people started dropping by the website and it gathered a lot of traction. An idea that came out of their own needs started becoming bigger and bigger. The founders started focusing a lot more on CarDekho while GirnarSoft continued to operate as the parent company.
Simultaneously, the founders toyed with many more ideas and verticals, such as PriceDekho, where one could compare e-commerce rates and take an informed decision. But one thing common among all platforms was that they all depended on traffic through Google, something that Amit understood very well during his time at Trilogy.
For any new offering, the Jain brothers had a thumb rule. In six-eight months, if the vertical/company doesn’t turn cash positive, they will shut it down. By 2011, things started looking up. CarDekho became the largest visited auto platform in the country and the enquiries for advertising increased. This is when an auto trader from Australia was scouting India for assets. Amit and Anurag were invited to Atlanta for a deal, where they understood that what they were building had the potential to become a large company, something they had envisioned for themselves during their Bengaluru days. The brothers came back and built a new office for around 80-90 people, but still with a doubt in mind if the office would ever fill up.”
Joined Unicorn Club with $1.2 Billion Valuation
Today, the CarDekho Group has around 6000 employees. In 2013, CarDekho secured its first funding in a Series A round of $15 million, led by PeakXV, followed by a Series B round in 2015, when it raised $50 million from investors such as Ratan Tata, Hillhouse Capital, Tybourne Capital and existing investors. In FY2015-16, the group’s auto portals CarDekho, Gaadi, Zigwheels and BikeDekho received 338 million visits. It also co-sponsored the IPL broadcast with two TV ads. In 2021, CarDekho raised a $200 million Series E round and joined the unicorn club with a valuation of $1.2 billion and became the first unicorn from Jaipur.
What began as an online catalogue has today grown into a group that houses platforms such as CarDekho, BikeDekho, Gaadi.com, Zigwheels, PowerDrift, InsuranceDekho, Rupyy, OTO, Revv and Carrum, among others. “When we started our business, we mentioned on our LinkedIn profile that we are building a billion-dollar company. The aim was always large, and we cut down anything that could not become large, even if it was profitable. The focus was and still remains to think big and take a plunge,” Amit says.
Conclusion
From a modest beginning in Jaipur to becoming India’s leading auto-tech unicorn, CarDekho’s journey is a testament to visionary thinking, relentless execution, and deep customer understanding. Amit and Anurag Jain turned a personal pain point into a pioneering platform that revolutionized how Indians buy, sell, and research vehicles. Their commitment to scale while staying rooted in practicality helped CarDekho evolve beyond a car catalogue into a diversified auto ecosystem. Today, with over 6000 employees and multiple verticals under the CarDekho Group, the company continues to drive innovation in auto-tech, setting benchmarks for startups in Tier 2 cities and beyond.
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