Mecho Autotech, a Nigerian mobility startup has announced the raise of $2.4 million pre-series A fund to expand operations across Nigeria.
The pre-series A round saw participation from Global Brain Corporation, Uncovered fund, and Ventures platform.
Mecho Auto offers automotive spare parts, vehicle repairs, and maintenance services.
According to the startup, the funds will enable it to launch a B2B distribution platform for aftermarket spare parts.
Spare parts account for 80% of the $8 billion estimated value of the Nigerian automotive aftersales industry.
According to reports, about 90% of the over 12 million registered vehicles are imported and preowned. This creates high demand for high quality spare parts, from a market that is mostly informal and highly fragmented.
Mecho Autotech disclosed that the company will leverage its existing partnership with Asian aftermarket spare parts manufacturers to provide spare parts.
This will give vendors and workshop owners access to it at an affordable rate and increase the availability of high-quality spare parts.
By correcting the disjointed aftermarket spare parts supply chain, the startup believes that it will be solving one of the biggest problems in the industry.
The co-founder and CEO of Mecho Autotech, Olusegun Owoade, said,
“In our original business model, our core focus was on vehicle maintenance and repair. But we soon realized a much larger issue there, was an extreme scarcity of high-quality spare parts in the market. Spare parts vendors face frequent stockouts and struggle to access inventory financing. In our marketplace, vendors can source inventory from leading aftermarket spare parts manufacturers and access credit”.
Launched in 2021, Mecho Autotech works from over 110 approved workshops and has served over 6,000 cars in repairs and maintenance, from B2B and B2C clients.
It also has three workshops of its own.
As of February 2022, the startup had 40 B2B customers who own over 20,000 vehicles, and had serviced over 2,000 vehicles.
It has boarded more than 7,000 third-party mechanics across over three workshops in Lagos servicing B2B customers.
Mecho Autotech’s vision is to drive efficiency in the automotive spare parts supply chain through technology and financing.
The startup looks to develop an app that will help vendors to receive inventory finance and manage their inventory sale.It will also enable workshops to access working capital and acquire spare parts. The app development is the company’s goal for Q4, 2023.
