Car Throttle, the platform set to redefine the automotive media vertical, has raised $1.6 million in a seed funding round led by Redalpine Capital II, alongside Passion Capital and Facebook’s first international employee Blake Chandlee.
The round will help Car Throttle to continue building their innovative media platform which currently serves four million unique visitors per month. Adnan Ebrahim, the 24-year-old founder and CEO of Car Throttle, said: “This latest funding round allows us to continue building what we believe is the future of publishing; focusing on niches, like automotive, and growing rock-solid communities with the right balance of editorial content and user-generated posts.”
Peter Niederhauser, Partner at Redalpine, said: “We were impressed by how Adnan and his team have managed to grow a highly engaged community of car fans around the world. We are excited to lead this round as we see tremendous potential in Car Throttle’s new-media approach to this vertical.”
Blake Chandlee, Facebook’s VP of Global Partnerships and first international employee, said: “There is huge growth right now in vertical communities, particularly in building the technology which powers user-generated content around tight niches. Car Throttle has identified a community of petrolheads who are currently underserved by existing broader platforms.”
Car Throttle was founded in 2008 by Adnan while still at University. From his University bedroom he managed to grow an enthusiast blog and generate revenues from advertising before deciding to pursue the business full-time after graduating. The platform is now one of the prime online destinations for car fans globally.
The brand has managed to build highly popular social profiles, particularly on Facebook where it has over 2.5 million fans, and on YouTube where it produces weekly videos - including car reviews, comedy and trivia - for one of the fastest growing subscriber bases among car channels worldwide.
Car Throttle currently receives thousands of contributions per day from users. With over 60 per cent of its traffic from mobile devices, the next big thing now for Car Throttle will be to go mobile.
For further information, please visit www.carthrottle.com