Carousell snags US$85m in new funding by investors including DBS

Singapore

CAROUSELL, Singapore's poster startup and online classifieds app, has raised US$85 million in Series C funding - a round The Business Times has learnt is entirely equity and does not include debt - with local lender DBS also joining as a new investor.

Industry players were quick to highlight that the funding amount - said to be the largest in the classifieds space regionally - is sizeable for a six-year-old startup that is loss-making and only in the last year implemented revenue models such as listing fees and advertising partnerships. But it is unsurprising given Carousell's reach, they added. Since its 2012 founding, the startup has now expanded to seven markets across Asia with over 144 million listings.