Naspers’ wholly-owned subsidiary, OLX Group, said it made an investment of ZAR 1.4 billion in Webuycars.
Webuycars is South African-based used car marketplace offering a specialised car buying service to sellers and was founded 17 years ago by Faan and Dirk van der Walt. The hands-on entrepreneurs have built the business into a large and successful player in the used car buying space, with operations across South Africa.
The combination of Webuycars’ specialised instant buying model and OLX’s proprietary online classifieds technology will strengthen the overall used car ecosystem in South Africa by providing dealerships with improved access to stock and private buyers and sellers with an enhanced user experience focused on trust, safety and convenience.
“We believe that the technology and services from specialised car buying services like Webuycars can help improve the experience of classifieds users across our OLX platforms. We are particularly impressed with the team’s focus on the customer and the lean operating model they have established and look forward to working together to empower car dealers and bring further convenience and trust to used car buying and selling in South Africa. We’re very excited about South Africa’s market potential and we’re committed to investing in great e-commerce businesses like Webuycars there,” said Martin Scheepbouwer, CEO, OLX Group.
“We are extremely excited about this investment from the OLX Group as it will enable us to improve the experience of our customers and fund our future growth plans,” said Faan van der Walt, CEO, Webuycars.
The group said the investment forms part of its undertaking to accelerate growth in classifieds, online food delivery and fintech businesses globally.
It would be recalled that Naspers had announced that it would unbundle Multichoice from its group, list it on the Johanesburg Stock Exchange, JSE, to further focus on its Internet startup business.
