Tech enabled multi-brand car service provider Pitstop has raised $3.5 million in a Pre-series-B funding round. The funding was led by Ventureast with participation from ACKO Technologies, LetsVenture, AngelList India, Blume Ventures, among others.
The company had earlier raised funding from a marquee list of investors, which include Landmark Cars (one of India’s largest car dealership chain), Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma from Livspace, Rahul Garg from Moglix, Shailesh Rao to name a few.
The start-up had raised $6.2 million, including $2.5 million series-A in 2020. The total funding raised with the current infusion amounts to $9.7 Million.
Pitstop will use the new funds to strengthen its end-to-end car maintenance operations in the existing cities and further expand to 20 additional cities by the end of the year.
As part of this expansion, Pitstop will be adding 250 service vans, which are its primary mode of delivering car maintenance and service. Pitstop will also be enrolling 350 garages to build the required geographical penetration into each new city added. Pitstop is currently fully operational in 5 cities including the NCR region.
Pitstop envisages 2021 to be a period of hyper growth as more and more customers are looking for safer, more reliable, and at-home car service options. The company achieved an average monthly growth of 40 percent in 2020. The biggest surge in its customer base came from women car owners, growing from a negligible level in early 2020 to close to 23 percent today.
A significant portion of its customer base comes from the IT corridors and suburbs, which has higher density of non-local population. As part of its expansion plans, it aims to make a more homogeneous inroads across the cities where it has a significant presence.
One of the key developments has been the increased procurement of spare parts by garages. The venture claims over 50 percent of the existing garage partners now source their spare parts from Pitstop and the platform is also looking at a 40-50 percent growth per month since the lockdown to further “disrupt” the car service, repair, maintenance industry in India.
“Technology is at the core of what we do, and our investors have recognized it. Our goal has always been to provide a hassle-free and seamless doorstep car servicing experience. And, the Pitstop app complements our goal by providing a one stop solution for customers looking to get their car serviced, repaired, and maintained with minimum touchpoints. The current capital infusion will enable us to strengthen our operations in the existing locations and at the same time tap the rich talent pool available in India” said Mihir Mohan, Founder, Pitstop.
“Pitstop is pioneering a new paradigm in the automotive after-sales market as a one stop solution for auto service needs, including their signature doorstep and roadside emergency services. Ventureast is excited to be partnering with Pitstop as it scales its operations pan-India and integrates the critical supply chain in its operations.” Said Siddhartha Das, General Partner, Ventureast.
“We were impressed with the team’s ability to execute at scale with high customer satisfaction. Their focus on curating supply on spares and services and using technology to provide complete transparency to their customers was impressive,” said Vinay Rao, Principal at Ventureast.
Started in 2015 by Mihir Mohan, Pitstop aims to address the massive gap in the car service industry where only 8500 branded and authorised service centers exit to cater to over 32 million cars.
Pitstop works with existing local multi-brand car service by reskilling, training, and giving access to state-of-the-art equipment and OEM spares. With its unique home service offering, Pitstop brings transparency, accountability, and convenience to India’s broken car repair experience.
