"The startup, founded in 2001, said it expects to book 100 million Yuan ($12.4 million) in revenue for 2005. It employs 300.

Chinacars provides a variety of services including an informational web site, traffic data, positioning systems, and an Auto trading market.

The startup collected a seed round in 2001 from the Wanxiang Group, a Chinese auto part manufacturer. Wanxiang CEO Lu Weiding said his firm believes the Internet has great potential to help consumers in the auto market.

Menlo Park, California-based Granite Global, backers of Alibaba (see Yahoo's $4B Alibaba Move), believe in the company's potential to exploit opportunities in China. "The auto industry and the Internet industry share a very important trait: they are both liberating forces for people's lives," said Jenny Lee, an executive director at Granite Global.

The venture firm also liked Chinacars' business model. "You're seeing a lot more U.S. VCs heading over to China and Internet business models are a good place to start for these companies," said Managing Director Scott Bonhem. "They require a small amount of capital and you can scale them very easily."