Motorway has raised £143 million in a funding round which sees it become the UK’s latest unicorn.
The online used car marketplace becomes the nation’s 37th company to be valued at more than $1 billion.
It has also announced the appointment of James Wilson, former director of marketplace fulfillment for Amazon UK, as its new chief operating officer.
People looking for a fast sale of their vehicle can have its state assessed via computer vision on the Motorway app before professional dealers bid on it, with the winner then collecting the car for free.
More than 100,000 cars have been sold via the platform to date, with a current rate of 8,000 a month. A network of 4,000 car dealers use the platform.
London-based Motorway will look to increase the size of its team from 250 to more than 350 over the next 12 months.
The round was led by Index Ventures and ICONIQ Growth, while existing investors Latitude, Unbound and BMW i Ventures also participated. It follows a $67.7m round in June.
“In 2017, we set out to reinvent how people sell their cars, transforming a broken offline process with a superior online experience,” said CEO Tom Leathes, who co-founded the company with Harry Jones and Alex Buttle.
“Our team has dedicated themselves to this mission through unprecedented times – enabling us to turn a traditionally lose-lose market into a win-win for our customers and dealer partners.
“We’re now completing over 8,000 car sales a month. That’s a big number, but still less than 1% of UK used car sales – so there’s massive opportunity ahead.”
Danny Rimer, partner at Index Ventures, said: “Since joining the board following our initial investment in June, I have experienced first-hand just how fast Motorway is growing and how agile the team is in scaling the business to support this incredible growth.
“Strong leadership, coupled with great technology to fuel an incredibly powerful platform, has enabled Motorway to step up a gear and move into the fast lane.
“They’ve taken advantage of the strong market conditions and changing consumer and dealer behaviour to become the go-to place for people selling their car.”