CarDekho SEA, a Singapore-based auto financing service platform, has raised $60 million in equity, valuing the company at over $300 million, from Navis Capital Partners and Dragon Fund. This is its first round of external funding, following a previous investment of $40 million from its parent company, CarDekho Group.

The company, the Southeast Asia unit of India’s CarDekho Group, will use the funding to support its further expansion into Southeast Asia, focusing on the used car and bike financing industry in Indonesia and the used auto financing sector in the Philippines, Umang Kumar, co-founder and president of CarDekho, said in an interview with TechCrunch.  

Kumar told TechCrunch that acquiring a used car financing platform or insurance brokerage platform in Indonesia and the Philippines could be one of its strategies to increase their presence in the region.

“We do have a couple of assets lined up in terms of what we will look at. You may hear something along those lines within a month or two…we will actively look at acquiring activities. The idea is not completely organically built. So we will look at some inorganic acquisition as we build out our business across Southeast,” Kumar said.

Founded in 2020, the company already has a significant presence in Indonesia (OTO Indonesia) and the Philippines (Carmudi Philippines and Zigwheels Philippines). It’s also in a few other Southeast Asian markets, such as Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam, and is eyeing expansion into new markets in 2026.

Kumar explained that the company initially had a joint venture partner in Indonesia but later bought out the local partner entirely, becoming the 100% owner of the entity between 2019 and 2020. The company’s acquisition spree continues as it acquired Carmudi, which operates in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand, in 2021 to expand into SEA, Kumar explained.

Unlike its peers, CarDekho SEO acts as a comprehensive aggregator for auto financing services. Its main competitor used to be Moladin, which has now pivoted to become a full-fledged lender.  

CarDekho SEA highlights its edges, including its technology-driven loan procedures, asset-light marketplace approach with no credit risk, an extensive network of used car dealers and agents, and solid collaborations with financial institutions. CarDekho SEA will use AI and machine learning solutions to reduce fraud and credit risks and provide more data to their financing partners to succeed in a changing technological environment.

Since its launch, the company has experienced significant growth, with over 200,000 disbursements and over $1 billion in loans disbursed. This represents a 50x increase in gross merchandise value over the past three years and establishing partnerships with over 50 financiers and 20,000 dealers and retail agents.

Its primary customers are small-scale used car dealers, with many having less than ten cars in stock or no physical showroom at all. “Due to their sub-scale presence, financiers often find it challenging to serve them directly,” the CEO said. “Our platform aggregates demand from these individual dealers, connecting them to a wide network of financiers and offering access to a variety of financial products for themselves and their customers—products that were previously inaccessible to them.”

The company is in the scale-up phase, generating upwards of $50 million in revenue annually through per-loan commissions with the financiers.

SpaceX, on December 10, conducted a static fire test of its Starship Super Heavy Booster at the Starbase facility in Texas. The test was part of the preparations for the flight which could happen as soon as January 2025.

Taking to social media, SpaceX shared a video and pictures from the test where the 232-feet-tall Booster stood on the launch mount and its 33 raptor engines were briefly fired.

Static fire of the Flight 7 Super Heavy booster pic.twitter.com/xqfykcq7QU
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 9, 2024

The next flight will be Starship’s seventh. Flight 6 took place on November 20 and was largely successful. The only point where SpaceX fell short was catching the Super Heavy Booster using the launch tower due to a technical issue.

Reports have hinted that SpaceX will try launching the rocket on January 11, 2025 but an official announcement from the company is yet to be made.

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Getting ready for Flight 7 https://t.co/EabzblI6oF
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2024

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also hinted that the launch might happen soon as he reposted pictures of the test fire with the caption, “Getting ready for flight 7.”

According to an email sent by NASA to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the agency wants to use its Gulfstream V jet to observe the Starship mission. It will gather data on the rocket’s upper stage’s atmospheric reentry from the sky.

The 400-feet-tall Starship not only matters for SpaceX to ride to Mars but also to NASA, which wants to use it for landing astronauts on the Moon. The agency has paid SpaceX nearly $4 billion to develop rockets that would take humans to the lunar surface in more than five decades. Starship will be used by NASA during Artemis 3, the Moon landing mission that has been pushed to mid-2027.

Musk has previously said that the mega rocket will reach Mars in the next four years and if all goes well with its landing on the red planet, we might soon see astronauts leave for Mars as well.

ALSO SEE: Elon Musk ‘Highly Confident’ About Sending Starships To Mars By 2026

(Image: SpaceX)

Indian astronomers have made an exciting discovery in the GG Tau A, a triple star system. Located approximately 489 light-years from Earth, this fascinating region, known as a “planet factory,” contains a protoplanetary disk – a rotating ring of gas and dust – where new planets may be forming.

GG Tau A is part of a rare triple-star system, making it an intriguing area of study for scientists. Most known planets form around single stars, like our Sun, or binary star systems. However, studying planet formation in multiple star systems, such as this one, has been challenging. The GG Tau A system, estimated to be between 1 and 5 million years old, is relatively young, making it an ideal site to observe the earliest stages of planet formation.

A team of researchers from the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) in Odisha, has made significant progress in understanding this system. Using advanced radio telescopes in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the team, led by scientist Liton Majumdar, detected emissions from key molecules within the disk, India Today reported.

These molecules, frozen onto tiny dust particles in the coldest regions of the disk, are believed to be the basic building blocks of planets. The findings have been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

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The researchers focused on the “mid-plane” of the protoplanetary disk, where they discovered temperatures far below the freezing point of carbon monoxide. These icy conditions are crucial for planet formation. At such low temperatures, dust and gas particles stick together, eventually clumping to form the foundations of planets.

GG Tau A is fascinating for its triple-star configuration, which creates a unique environment for planet formation. While planets forming around single or binary stars have been observed, understanding how planets develop in more complex systems is still an emerging field of research.

This discovery not only provides valuable insights into the chemical makeup and physical conditions needed for planet formation but also helps astronomers understand how diverse planetary systems can be. By studying systems like GG Tau A, scientists hope to learn more about the origins and evolution of planets in multi-star environments.

ALSO SEE: Scientists Look For Alien Technology From The TRAPPIST Planets

(Image: ESA)