Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Co-founder of GirnarSoft, Amit Jain launched CarDekho in 2008. CarDekho is a website as well as a mobile application, which helps its users in buying vehicles that they intend to buy. Website includes the reviews of experts which is often reliable, while making any purchase, and also clearly compares and differentiates the different types of vehicles, which allows the users to buy the most preferable one. The comparisons are provided in detail, which includes pictures and videos of the brands and their models which are available in India.
Recently, it has been informed that Amit Jain is soon going to be on the panels of the sharks, in the popular Indian show Shark Tank, along with other sharks.
Let’s discuss more about Amit’s life, career, and other related aspects in the following article.
Introduction
Born on 12th November 1976, Friday; Amit Jain was raised in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Prashant Jain, Amit Jain’s father was an RBI officer, who passed away in 2006. His mother’s name was Nilima Jain, was a homemaker. Amit also had a younger brother, Anurag Jain, who is the Co-founder and COO of CarDekho.com.
Being an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Jain completed his schooling at Saint Xavier’s School in Jaipur. Prior to co-founding CarDekho, Amit worked as a software engineer with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). He didn’t complete his tenure in the TCS for a longer period, and later joined Trilogy, a software company in Texas, working as a senior associate.
Later, he and his brother teamed up and launched GirnarSoft, an IT externalizing company that was considered to be the foundation for CarDekho.com.
Success of CarDekho.com
CarDekho was developed by an IT externalizing company named GirnarSoft, which was owned by the duo Amit Jain and Anurag Jain. Cardekho.com is a website as well as a mobile application, which allows its users to get the information they are searching for in any automobile. Both these apps and websites are rich in content in various domains regarding the world of automobiles, which unlimitedly includes experts reviews, detailed specifications, prices of both ex-showrooms as well as on-road, and also comparisons of the cars along with their images and videos, with an exhausting range of various brands and models available in the homeland India.
The Cardekho is not limited to only listing the vehicles which are meant for trade but also offers its users a platform to buy and sell their used cars. Moreover, the company provides its users with services that include insights into the automobile industry, new updates, images of cars, and videos, as also the features, recent launchings, prices, and other specs in the car’s domain.
Interestingly, the CarDekho has recently launched its own e-store, which exhibits and trades a wide array of accessories for automobiles, including stickers, floor mats, scratch removers, polish, and mobile chargers for vehicles, car shampoo, navigation devices, seat covers, tires, alloy wheels, car stereos, car perfumes, and many more.
Apart from the services mentioned above, CarDekho also offers financial services to aid their customers during the purchase of any vehicle. These financial aids include instant car loans to car insurance schemes, which are provided by CarDekho themselves in partnerships with BnkBazaar.com for instant car loans, and Berkshire Insurance for Car insurance schemes.
Thus, CarDekho is more or less like a virtual car dealer, which is a technically sound and updated web portal and a mobile application and thereby provides their users with an effortless 360-degree experience.
Vision of CarDekho
CarDekho upholds its mission to digitize the automobile sector and its ecosystem, thereby making the process of vehicle ownership easy and stress-free. Moreover, it sees itself to become one of the largest personal mobility players in the Indian market.
Amit Jain and Shark Tank
Many Shark Tank fans were very surprised about the release of the new season’s trailer, which featured Amit Jain, the co-founder, and CEO of CarDekho. Amit was called a Shark into the show, in replacement of Ashneer Grover, the former founder of BharatPe.
During Shark Tank season 1, Grover gained tremendous popularity, but Jain was also able to catch people’s interest. The new ‘Shark’ was a whole new personality, who had won the interest of many viewers as well as participants in the business reality show.
Revenue and business model of CarDekho.com
The net worth of Amit Jain has been estimated to be around $360 million.
The CarDekho is considered to be India’s 1st auto-portal that caters to car buyers, by providing them with assistance with the support of unbiased reviews about various cars, as well as updating buyers with great deals on cars, with assistance on any car-related issue, be it finance or insurance.
The company operates with 13 subsidiaries and associated companies, with domestic operations which account for about 94.4% of the collection. The rest is generated due to its presence internationally. Moreover, the company has a presence in countries like the Philippines as well as Indonesia, which operates under the name Carmudi and Oto, respectively.
The CarDekho Company operates with multiple streams of revenue, which basically consist of services like the sale and purchasing of used cars, and other ancillary services. The company purchases used cars from sellers who intend to sell them with negotiable pricing, and later sells them to car dealers having a presence in India, and this vertical movement of the used cars accounted for 55.3% of the total operating revenue. Later, this revenue rose to around 67.4% to over 489 crore INR in FY21, from revenue of 292.3 crore INR in FY20.
Moreover, the company facilitates the lead generation and transaction services to used car dealers who intend to sell their vehicles to the end users, via its platform. Through this process, a commission I earned by the company accounts for 12% of the revenue earned annually, and it dropped by 27% year-over-year to around 104 crore INR, during FY21.
CarDekho.com launched its own insurance brokerage in order to sell insurance to its users via its platform, in the year 2020. This brokerage service contributes around 3% of the company’s annual revenues. During the covid-19 outbreak, the insurance vertical was disrupted to a great extent with a fall in the collections by 10% to 30 crore INR in FY 21, from 33 crore INR in FY20.
Moreover, the company also provides advertisement and digital marketing solutions to many Original Equipment Manufacturers and dealers, which fetch a revenue of 27.8%. However, the growth in this particular vertical remained flat, with an increase recorded by only 8% to 245.5 crore INR in FY21, compared to 227.4 crore INR raised in FY20.
Apart from the revenue sources mentioned above, the company also successfully generated income from many other ancillary services like customer-care services as well as software development. In FY21, the revenue jumped from 39.5% to 15.96 crore INR from 11.44 crore INR in FY20. Also, the company earned 51.7 crores from its wide array of assets, which pushed the total income to a significant increase of 936 crores during the fiscal which ended in March 2020.
In conclusion, it can be said that the core activity of CarDekho.com which is trading used vehicles, was observed to generate the largest cost center of the company. This solely accounted for around 37.6% of the annual expenses. Later, the cost involved in acquiring used car stock rose by 66.2% to 481 crores, recorded in FY21, compared to FY20 which was only about 289.4 crore.
Future beholds of CarDekho.com
CarDekho.com is a leading auto-tech company, which has digitally transformed itself across several categories, operating in both domestic and international playgrounds.
As reported by SIAM, during the lockdown period of 2020, the Indian automobile industry suffered a tremendous loss of 2,300 crore INR each day, and an estimated record of 3.45 lakh jobs was lost. The Indian automobile industry holds a contribution of 7.5% to the overall GDP of the country, and accounts for 49%of the manufacturing sector. It was evident that factories had to be shut down, and when dealerships shuttered and demand fell to an all-time low, it became extremely difficult for many vehicle manufacturers and dealerships, all over the country. When the lockdown was lifted, the industry was concerned about short-term liquidity, and long-term revenue growth and profitability.
Amit Jain: an Inspiration for youth
As stated by Amit Jain and his brother Anurag Jain, “several ideas failed, but the spirit of creating something meant more than the failure”. The duo went bankrupt as they put their hard-earned money on the stock market, and lost a tremendous amount of 1 crore INR. Clearly lured by the thought of making quick money, the duo had been trading in futures and options which were basically volatile contacts based on the share movements. Within just 4-5 days, as the covid-19 outbreak spread, all the fortunes they had put at stake, were wiped out all at once. But interestingly, they still owned a web portal by CarDekho.com which was yet to develop but was running low on funds to pay off salaries and dues. Not thinking much about the failure that they just faced, instead they focussed all their energy and efforts on developing the amateur web portal they still owned. After the defeat, they both went to the office on time, and amazingly they didn’t let their employees know about what had just happened to them. Learning from the mistake, the Jain brothers had learned a very essential lesson of business, i.e. they should never risk their base capital. As stated by Anurag, ‘corporate money needs to be used with much sanctity’.
After that very day, the duo resolved that they would never break the rule they had just self-imposed. And interestingly, this decision did serve them well.
Facing such a huge loss, completely going bankrupt, Amit Jain and Aman Jain established CarDekho.com as one of the largest Auto-Tech companies in its home country. Also, the company has reached international levels and has established its services in international markets as well. Moreover, the company has achieved a valuation of over 25 crores INR and is listed as a unicorn company.
Also, the company claims that it observes a monthly visit of 40 million, with the expectations of 18 million visiting twice.
Because of the dedication and hard work of the Jain brothers, CarDekho.com has been able to achieve such recognition and appraisal from its users, as they offer the best in class facilitates which one car enthusiast requires.
Thus, Amit Jain was invited as a Shark in the Indian Business-reality show ‘Shark Tank season 2’, and has been widely recognised as an efficient shark, with many fans.
