Mecho Autotech, a Nigerian startup that connects car owners with good vehicle maintenance and repair providers has raised $2.15 million in a seed financing round. The round saw participation from investors including Future Africa, HoaQ Capital, Cathexis Ventures, V8 Capital, Silver Squid and Tekedia Capital.
Mecho Autotech, founded by Olusegun Owoade and Ayoola Akinkunmi runs a digital platform that gives vehicle owners access to good car-related services such as repair and maintenance while being convenient, affordable and trustworthy. The platform is aware of how hard it is to get good car services in a place like Nigeria where only a few car owners have centres in the country. This is why it has its own in-house third-party mechanics that have the skills and are well-trained in handling car maintenance and repairs.
According to Olusegun Owoade, “So what we did was create a network of vetted technicians across 35 states out in Nigeria to tackle the poor vehicle maintenance culture in Nigeria”. The platform does not run its business without insurance. “We also created an insurance plan because we know that motor insurance is compulsory. So if we have an insurance plan that has an annual maintenance plan embedded, it’s more or less substituting this for the after-sales package people with brand new vehicles typically get”, he added.
Mecho Autotech says it has more than 7,000 mechanics across three workshops in Lagos servicing B2C customers that include Kobo, Shuttlers, Moove and Tolaram Group. It charges about 15% commission fees; 10% from service charges and 5% from spare parts charges.
Mecho Autotech says it is developing a spare parts value chain that has already been of service to 100 third-party mechanics and several large ticket inventory purchases for B2B customers.
The acquired funds will be geared towards expanding the aforementioned service as well as “to expand its multi-channel service capacity, engineering team, and marketing budget for B2C acquisition”.
By the end of this year, Mecho aims to hit 25,000 paying customers subscribed to either a monthly, quarterly or annual subscription fee.
