Mecho Autotech, a Nigerian auto repair and maintenance firm, has secured US $2.15 million in early capital to develop its capabilities and attract additional clients.
Mecho Autotech, founded in 2021 by Olusegun Owoade and Ayoola Akinkunmi, provides companies and individuals with repair and maintenance services through in-house and third-party service capacity that has passed stringent examinations.
The firm provides workshop and mobile service capabilities (Mecho Shops and Mecho Mobile), and has onboarded over 7,000 third-party mechanics to its platform. It was a participant in the Y Combinator accelerator’s S21 batch last year, and it received money from Ingressive Capital.
Future Africa, Hoaq Capital, Cathexis Ventures, V8 Capital, Silver Squid, and Tekedia Capital have all contributed to the seed round, bringing the total amount raised to $2.15 million. The round was more than 300 percent oversubscribed. Mecho Autotech plans to use the funds to grow its multi-channel service capacity, technical staff, and B2C acquisition marketing expenditure.
The company has so far opened three Mecho Shops in Lagos and plans to continue expanding. Some of Nigeria’s top corporate fleets, including Uber partner Moove, Tolaram Group, and UAC Group, are among its B2B clients, while the business hopes to expand into B2C through a subscription service model and individual service requests.
Mecho is also building a spare parts value chain that has already supported over 100 third-party mechanics and many large-ticket inventory purchases for B2B clients.
“When you consider the state of Nigeria’s used cars and our roads, car maintenance isn’t optional. We want to automate high-quality vehicle repair and maintenance for Nigerians by making it easy, convenient, and affordable. We aspire to build a maintenance culture in Nigeria and beyond to keep roads and people safe,” Owoade said.
Future Africa’s creator and general partner, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, stated that his fund’s premise was to back founders who were tackling difficult challenges in vast markets.
“With over 12 million cars on our roads and more on the way, leveraging technology to bring order to vehicle maintenance and repair is overdue. We are delighted to work with the Mecho Autotech team as they brilliantly execute on building out the vehicle repair value chain across Africa and create new and decent highly skilled auto repair jobs,” he said.
