VEHICLE auction platform Motorist has closed S$1.2 million in seed funding invested by an angel syndicate, led by active angel and JobsCentral's co-founder Lim Der Shing, it said in a press statement on Thursday.

The syndicate is under AngelCentral, an angel investment club focused on startups in South-east Asia. The seed round also saw participation from previous investors, which include Zopim's co-founder Royston Tay and JobsCentral's co-founder Huang Shao-Ning.

The funds will be used to explore growth opportunities in Singapore and Malaysia, and support expansion in the company's third market, Thailand. Motorist said it aims to be operational in Thailand by the end of 2021, after an earlier announced entry into the market was delayed when Covid-19 hit.

Mr Lim noted that the Motorist team has "demonstrated their ability to be capital-efficient and have built a profitable multimillion-dollar business by mostly bootstrapping", adding that he was an early angel investor in the company and has tracked them for more than two years before investing further in them.

The company, which is operational in Singapore and Malaysia and has a tech team in Vietnam, added that it is looking to hire more than 100 employees across the four markets in the coming months to fuel its growth. Motorist also said it plans to scale and onboard 40 per cent of Singapore's vehicle population to its app by 2023, up from its current 10 per cent.

Chief executive and founder of Motorist Damian Sia said: "As we prepare for the opening of the economy, our team will accelerate our execution across markets to support more motorists in their ownership cycle."

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Motorist's app supports transactions related to the maintenance, buying and selling of vehicles, and provides features including group chats, smart reminders and incident reporting. It also offers an online payment feature.