Best Auto Companies in Malaysia
The 88 best Auto companies in Malaysia in 2026, ranked by funding and momentum. Funding, investors, founders, valuation, tech stack and live signals. Top: CARSOME.
Malaysia's Auto sector has a clear funding story, and our directory of 88 tracked companies makes it readable fast. Total disclosed funding sits at $987M, with Carsome alone accounting for $808M of that, which tells you something about where conviction has concentrated. Deftech follows at $96M, iCarAsia at $70M, and the rest of the field trails off sharply. One unicorn in the mix. Investors like Catcha Group, 500 Global, and Quest Ventures have been the most active backers, and the funding spread suggests the market rewards scale aggressively and is patient with very little else.
The momentum underneath is real, though. Median app install growth across automotive categories is running at roughly +22% YoY across 552 tracked apps, which I'd read as consumer engagement still climbing. Hot themes right now are EV powertrain advancements, next-generation EV platforms, and battery technology, and sales satisfaction pressure across the broader industry is quietly pushing buyers toward digital-first discovery tools, the kind Carsome and iCarAsia are built around. So what does that mean for the 80-plus companies sitting well below the top tier? The EV coverage wave is rising, the consumer is active, and there's still ground to take.
- Middle-income consumers turning more toward used cars, survey finds
Our analysis of 256 Auto companies
$29.3b in tracked funding; 77% of the stack-profiled cohort runs cloud-native; funding activity peaked in 2021.
Ranked: Best Auto companies in Malaysia
| # | Company | Disclosed funding | Last round | Stage | Founder | Founded | Tech stack | Recent signals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CARSOME 🦄 App based marketplace for used cars | $808M | 3 mo ago | Series F | Eric Cheng Co-Founder & CEO | 2015 | Cart FunctionalityNode.jsPaths.js+28 | — |
| 2 | DEFTECH Manufacturer of heavy commercial vehicle | $96M | — | Funding Raised | Amril Samsudin CEO | 1996 | WordPressMySQLPHP+26 | 1 partnership |
| 3 | iCarAsia Online listing platform for used cars | $70M | 103 mo ago | Acquired | — | 2012 | Apple iCloud MailGoogle WorkspacePHP+17 | — |
| 4 | Inokom Automotive manufacturing company | $11M | 124 mo ago | Series A | Rizal Jailan CEO | 1997 | particles.jsBootstrapIsotope+5 | — |
| 5 | Maxx 'N Go Online aftermarket service for automotive | $2M | 113 mo ago | Deadpooled | Patrick Tam Founder & CEO | 2016 | — | — |
| 6 | POMEN B2B cloud SaaS automotive maintenance and repair platform | $62K | 63 mo ago | Seed | Syed Zulhilmi Tuan Sharif Co-Founder & CEO | 2019 | WordPressMySQLPHP+14 | 1 partnership |
| 7 | Auto Craver Online auto portal for buying/selling of used cars | $46K | 74 mo ago | Seed | Adham Fayumi Founder & CEO | 2015 | — | — |
| 8 | Proton Brand of passenger vehicles | — | 47 mo ago | Acquired | Mahathir Mohamad Founder | 1985 | WordPressMySQLPHP+22 | 1 expansion |
Top 9 Auto companies in Malaysia
#1
CARSOME 🦄Series F · Petaling Jaya, Selangor · founded 2015 · 4000 employees$807.8Mraised▾
App based marketplace for used cars. It collects vehicle-related data from individual sellers, sends its staff for inspection, holds auctions for dealers, and delivers the cars to buyers. It provides a platform for buying and selling pre-owned cars. Refurbishment processes are applied to improve vehicle condition.
- Mar 2026Series F$30M
- Jul 2025Conventional Debt$15M
- Jul 2024Series E$21.4M
- Jun 2023Venture Debt—
#2
Acquired · Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur · founded 2012 · 394 employees$69.9Mraised▾
ICarAsis is an online listing platform for used cars. Buyers can browse the cars, check prices, compare & directly contact the sellers via their platform. Sellers can list their cars on the platform.
- Nov 2017Post IPO$19.3M
- Sep 2016Post IPO$17.5M
- Jul 2015Post IPO$8.6M
- Nov 2014Post IPO$18M
#3
Funding Raised · Shah Alam, Selangor · founded 1996$96.1Mraised▾
DRB HICOM Defence Technologies is an heavy commercial vehicle manufacturing company with products across categories such as city & intercity van, hearse van, light tow truck, coach bus and coaster.
- Conventional Debt$96.1M
#4
Series A · Kulim, Kedah · founded 1997$10.6Mraised▾
Automotive manufacturing company
- Feb 2016Series A$1.8M
- Dec 2014Series A$8.8M
#5
Deadpooled · Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur · founded 2016$2.2Mraised▾
Maxx 'N Go provides engine oil change and roadside assistance services for automobiles. It provides on-demand services for tire & brake replacement, transmission, engine, electrical & misc. It offers an app-based for booking on-site services. The app is available for iOS & Android devices.
- Jan 2017Seed$2.2M
#6
Seed · Shah Alam, Selangor · founded 2019 · 40 employees$61.8Kraised▾
Pomen App is a platform that helps car drivers who need to be rescued, connect to nearby available workshops. We are "Uber" like system for Workshop for car drivers. Our platform is open to workshop , mechanics or any other service provider to be part of POMEN Ecosystem. Through our analytics platform, we offer data insight of the workshop and automotive ecosystems
#7
Seed · Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur · founded 2015$46.4Kraised▾
Auto Craver is an auto portal for buying and selling used cars and motorbikes in Malaysia. Experts from the company will do 145-point inspection of the used car before putting it on the portal for sell. The platform guarantees to sell used vehicles within 30 days of listing; else they will buy it themselves. Provides delivery as well along with 3 Months/10,000kms full bumper to bumper warranty.
- Apr 2020Seed$46.4K
- Seed—
#8
Acquired · Shah Alam, Selangor · founded 1985 · 9600 employees—raised▾
Proton is a car manufacturing company with products across categories such as JEBAT, LEKIU, TUAH, LEKIR, KASTURI and motorsport cars.
#9
Seed · Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur · founded 2018—raised▾
Online distributors of car and bike aftermarket parts. The platform enables users to buy car and bike aftermarket parts. Users can browse the website based on car brands, models, and purchase year, and search for their automotive parts online.
- Mar 2022Seed—
Funding & investor landscape
Notable founders
Market landscape — 10 sub-themes by coverage
Share of Auto coverage by sub-theme.
Regulatory-risk over time rising
Funding & growth over time
funding rising · growth rising
How research on Autonomous Vehicles is moving in Malaysia
A read on the academic research around Autonomous Vehicles — which themes are gaining ground, the institutions and researchers driving them, and how the tone is shifting. Based on 173 Malaysia-affiliated papers.
- University of Technology Malaysia28
- Ministry of Education20
- Universiti Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah11
- Universiti Sains Malaysia10
- Xiamen University Malaysia9
- Feature (linguistics)5
- Scalability5
- Object detection4
- Key (lock)4
- Computer vision4
- Computer vision2→7
- Humanities8
- Context (archaeology)4
- Cadastre4
- Perception3
- Transformation (genetics)3
Where autonomous vehicles is researched across Malaysia
Location clusters by institution affiliation — each city's volume, stance tone, and a quick read on its hot topic, what's advancing, the opening opportunity, and the main concern.
Common questions
Rohit lives in the feed. He covers what's moving right now — the funding rounds, launches and shifts breaking across the trade press — and ties them back to where the sector is heading.