Carro, the used car company that owns MyTukar has announced that it is making a strategic investment into the automotive media firm – Driven Communications. Driven Communications itself owns a list of websites, which includes paultan.org, carbase.my, and oto.my.
Carro, which is based in Singapore, has ensured that despite this investment, Driven Communication’s co-CEOs Paul Tan and Harvinder Singh will continue to lead the business. Driven Communications will also continue to have complete autonomy over its editorial direction. The investment is expected to be completed within 2 months, according to Carro.
Driven Communications co-CEO, Harvinder Singh said, “We are thrilled to know that Carro respects our editorial independence, our work with our customers, and encourages us to charge arm’s-length commercial charges to Carro group of companies. With this investment, we are looking forward to achieving profitability and growth beyond Malaysia.”
Carro highlighted that its investment into Driven Communications is its proactive move to promote openness and independence. The Singaporean-based firm explained that recent acquisitions of automotive classifieds and sites by other competitors in the industry has caused multiple dealers and platforms to be blocked. “This stifles healthy competition and customer access across the region – something Carro hopes to change,” the company said.
Driven Communications founder and co-CEO, Paul Tan said, “We welcome Carro’s strategic investment and our shared vision of a better, digitalised, transparent automotive used car ecosystem. Like many businesses, Driven Communications suffered financially during COVID-19. We are thankful for Carro’s future support that will protect our sites that loyal fans have come to love, save jobs and ensure continued independent reviews.”
Carro co-founder and CEO, Aaron Tan said, “We have been working with Driven Communications for nearly 2 years. They helped us launch our first MyTukar Autofair in Malaysia and their digital online reach was incredible. Feedback from other automotive participants has been amazing; OEMs and end-customers alike rely on them. It would be a shame that it does not have the right resources and tools to scale higher.”
Aaron also added, “We are a believer that classifieds and other services under Driven Communications should continue to be made available to their existing clientele, as well as our customers, dealers and competitors – a move we hope all classifieds emulate, given the Malaysian government initiative to break down monopolies and anti-competitive behaviour. We also strongly support its role to freely shape industry awareness and disseminate relevant information that will benefit end-customers and the industry, underpinned by facts and professional journalism. We aim to maintain a non-controlling stake and welcome other industry participants to jointly invest and support Driven Communication’s continued growth.”
