Motorist, which describes itself as a “motoring superapp”, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding from an AngelCentral syndicate led by Lim Der Shing, co-founder of JobsCentral.

Besides Lim, this funding round also saw participation from previous investors, Royston Tay, co-founder of Zopim and Huang Shao-Ning, Lim’s co-founder of JobsCentral.

Motorist claims to have grown its revenue by five times between 2018 and 2021, its services has been used by around half a million drivers to do transactions such as buying and selling cars and paying taxes and so on.

The gross merchandise value handled by the app has hit $600 million from just $176 million back in Jan 2019, when the last angel round was raised.

Motorist says it is used by around 10% of Singapore's overall vehicle population with vehicle management matters. It is aiming for 40% by 2023.

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The company has regional expansion plans too. Part of the latest round of money raised will be used to drive its expansion into Thailand, which will be its third market after Singapore and Malaysia. 

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In addition, Motorist has a tech team based in Vietnam. With the new funds, it is looking to expand its headcount by around 100 across all four countries.

Motorist sees “vastly more” untapped growth potential in the vehicle auction space, as well as across the entire vehicle ownership cycle.

The newly-raised funds will help Motorist grow faster and create an ecosystem of smart tools and services that will help car owners with vehicle purchases, vehicle loans and motor insurance, the company says.

“We have evolved from a contemporary car-dealing platform to one that supports motorists in all stages of their vehicle ownership cycle,” says founder and CEO of Motorist Damian Sia.

“Our team is grateful for the vote of confidence from our existing investors. 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”, he adds.

Lim, one of the early angel investors in Motorist a few years ago, says he has tracked Sia and his team for more than two years before putting in more money. 

“They have demonstrated their ability to be capital efficient and have built a profitable multimillion-dollar business by mostly bootstrapping,” says Lim.

Photo caption: (from left to right) Jake Ler, chief marketing officer; Damian Sia, CEO and Eugene Foo, chief operating officer.