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Pitstop, a Bengaluru-based tech-enabled multi-brand car service provider, on Tuesday said it raised $3.5 million in a pre-Series B round led by Ventureast, along with ACKO Technologies, LetsVenture, AngelList India, and Blume Ventures, among others.

Earlier, the startup had raised funding from a marquee list of investors, including Landmark Cars, Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma from Livspace, Rahul Garg from Moglix, and Shailesh Rao, to name a few.

To date, the startup has raised a total funding of $9.7 million.

Pitstop will use the funds to strengthen its end-to-end car maintenance operations in the existing cities and further expand to 20 additional cities in the next three quarters.

As part of this expansion, Pitstop is adding 250 service vans — its primary mode of delivering car maintenance and service — and is also enrolling 350 garages in the new cities to build the required geographical penetration. It is fully operational in five cities, including the Delhi-NCR region. 

“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 of Pitstop. 

Started in 2015, Pitstop aims to address the massive gap in the car service industry, where only 8,500 branded and authorised service centres cater to over 32 million cars. It works with existing local multi-brand car service providers by reskilling, training, and giving access to state-of-the-art equipment and OEM spares.

Pitstop expects 2021 to be a period of hyper-growth as more customers are looking for safer, more reliable, and at-home car servicing options. It achieved an average monthly growth of 40 percent in 2020.

The startup claims 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 that have a higher density of non-local population. In fact, it aims to make more homogeneous inroads across the cities, where it has a significant presence.

“Pitstop is pioneering a new paradigm in the automotive after-sales market as a one-stop solution for auto service needs, including its 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. 

According to Pitstop, over 50 percent of its existing garage partners source their spare parts from Pitstop. The platform is also looking at 40-50 percent growth per month since the lockdown to further disrupt the car service, repair, and maintenance industry in India.