Pitstop Raises $3.5 million In Pre-Series B Round Led By Ventureast The funds will help the company to expand to 20 additional cities in the next three quarters

Tech-enabled multi-brand car service provider Pitstop on Tuesday announced to have raised $3.5 million in a pre-series B funding round led by Ventureast with participation from ACKO Technologies, LetsVenture, AngelList India, and Blume Ventures, among others.

The company earlier raised funding from a marquee list of investors which includes Landmark Cars, Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma from Livspace, Rahul Garg from Moglix, and Shailesh Rao, to name a few.

The company will use this funding 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 five cities including the NCR region.

"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 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 per cent 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 per cent today. A significant portion of its customer base comes from the IT corridors and suburbs, which have a higher density of non-local population. As part of its expansion plans, it aims to make more homogeneous inroads across the cities where it has a significant presence, the company shared.

"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," stated Siddhartha Das, general partner, Ventureast.

One of the key developments has been the increased procurement of spare parts by garages. Over 50 per cent of the existing garage partners now source their spare parts from Pitstop. The platform is also looking at a 40-50 per cent growth per month since the lockdown to further "disrupt' the car service, repair, maintenance industry in India.

"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," added Vinay Rao, principal, Ventureast.

The startup has raised $6.2 million, including $2.5 million in Series A in 2020. Total funding raised with the current infusion amounts to $9.7 million.