Used-vehicle digital retailer Carmerce has raised KRW3 billion ($2.3 million U.S.) in pre-Series A funding a couple of months after starting operations with a seed funding round.
Based in South Korea, Carmerce launched last November, letting consumers buy secondhand cars within 10 minutes while completing all the processes through an app.
The new funding from Hankook Tire & Technology will be used to hire new team members and upgrade services, according to a news release.
“The company also aims to provide more competitive services to customers by strengthening promotional marketing activities and collaborating with various financial companies to accelerate the development of used-car loans,” said Hankook.
Last September, Carmerce raised seed funding from startup accelerator SparkLabs.
Its digital auto retail brings the startup into direct competition with auto marketplace KCar, which dominates the used-car e-commerce market in South Korea. Another newcomer is ChexCar, which recently debuted vending machine-aided digital auto retail.