After sales car service startup Pitstop bags $1 Mn from Blume, others

Bengaluru-based after-sales car service provider Pitstop, which connects car owners with multi-brand garages on its platform, has raised $1 million in its pre-Series A round.

The funding round saw participation from Blume Ventures, Singapore-based Goldbell Group, and a group of angel investors such as Anurag Srivastava, Shailesh Rao, Amiya Pathak, Rajesh Yohanan and Rahul Garg.

Last year, the company had raised $300,000 in angel funding from founders of Myntra, Moglix, Livspace, and others.

The latest proceeds will be deployed to ramp up its technology platform, provide doorstep services and invest in adding more vehicles, reports ET.

Incorporated in 2015 by Mihir Mohan and Nirant Ramakuru, Pitstop aims to provide car care services to owners and service providers by partnering and standardizing service offerings with multiple service centres.

Currently, it offers its services in Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, and Chennai.

"While we have so far worked through a network of 150 garages, we also want to focus on doorstep services and will invest in adding vehicles. We will also use the new funding to develop our technology," said Pitsop CEO Mohan.

The company mainly caters to customers looking for car service once their dealership service warranty expires.

It also works with customers including top ride-sharing companies, where it uses its proprietary SaaS-based Fleet Information System that provides leading taxi fleets, leasing companies and self-drive car rentals a one-stop real-time view of service repairs.

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Services are priced 35-42 per cent lower than what is charged at authorised service centres, claims Pitstop. This is because labour costs are inflated at authorised service centres to make up for the additional costs they incur in paying out annual licence fees to car manufacturers.

In an earlier interview with the BusinessLine, Mihir Mohan told that his start-up is all set to scale ₹28 crore in gross sales in the next 16-18 months, making it a profitable venture in under three years.

Pitstop receives 10-18 per cent in commissions per service from its partner garages and is on the road to turning profitable in the January-March quarter of 2018.

Pitstop: Website