Cars45’s Investor, Frontier Cars Group Raises $58M

The investor of Nigeria’s Car45, Frontier Car Group, a Berlin startup that has built a used car marketplace targeted specifically at countries outside of Western Europe and North America, has just raised $58 million in funding — $41 million in equity and $17 million in debt funding — to continue expanding its business into Africa, Latin America and Asia.

The Series B funding was led by Balderton Capital and TPG Growth, with Fraser McCombs Capitaland Autotech Ventures two automotive-specific funds also participating.

Sujay Tyle, Frontier’s 24-year-old American CEO who co-founded the company with Peter Lindholm (COO), and André Kussmann (CTO) — said that the choice to launch first and only in countries like Mexico and Nigeria, two of Frontier’s largest markets, was borne out of a couple of reasons.

He said: “I fell in love with the Auto1 model and I could see how it could be applied to emerging markets. Emerging markets represent nascency.”

Tyle added: “The number one channel for car theft in Mexico is classified advertising. People make deals in cash, but if you show up to a public location with $5,000, that’s a dangerous value proposition. Also, it takes a lot of time and is onerous.”

On the side of supply, he says Frontier is also providing a service that didn’t exist before. “Smaller dealers have a lot of trouble finding cars in these markets, where there are no auction houses or services to import vehicles, so for car dealers, we can provide them with a source of inventory, which also means we have a big impact,” he said.

Mark Norman, a Managing Partner at Fraser McCombs Capital, said in a statement: “Fraser McCombs Capital is excited to support the Frontier Cars Group team and their unique software and data platform to transform the used vehicle buying and selling experience in key growth markets around the world.  We’re pleased to bring our global automotive investment and operating experience to the board.”

In May last year, Cars45, raised a $5 million Series A round from the Frontier Cars Group, a holding company whose backers include Balderton Capital,  EchoVC, TPG Growth, and NEA.