Otoqi has announced the completion of its €6 million Series A funding round, co-led by Seventure Partners and Aster. With its AI-powered software and its community of freelance drivers, Otoqi is on a mission to help OEMs, dealers, rental companies or car-sharing specialists manage the relocation and charging of vehicles. This first round of Venture Capital funding will help the team to expand its mobility platform across Europe.
At Aster, we were particularly convinced about Otoqi for several reasons: the growing market opportunity, the unique approach and the team’s execution capabilities.
Enabling the automotive revolution…
In recent years, the traditional car ownership model has been challenged by the emergence of carsharing and new digital offerings aiming to provide better rental, leasing and/or purchase experiences. We believe that Otoqi’s solution will help all kinds of mobility players build a profitable operational model and brick-and-mortar car dealerships attract new digital customers.
Specifically, Otoqi addresses two main markets:
- OEMs and dealerships: they need help to deliver end-to-end digital offerings to customers. Reinforced by the Covid-19 pandemic, increasingly more consumers expect digital/virtual services before and after a car purchase.
- Carsharing operators: to make this business model viable, they need help to reduce their operating expenses, increase the quality of service and user experience and ultimately improve the usage rate of their vehicles. In Europe, the number of carsharing users is expected to reach 36 million by 2025, representing a €9.3bn market opportunity.
…by being the operational soul of mobility players…
At a time when margins are being squeezed by increased price competition and the proliferation of alternative services, Otoqi offers a tool to reduce operating costs and facility-related expenses, thereby reducing the break-even point for carsharing operators.
The same ROI-focused approach has been developed for car dealers: Otoqi can help them boost their revenues and generate a much better user experience by offering new digital pre- and post-sales services (such as maintenance pre-packages) to car dealers and garages. The uniqueness of the solution is due to superior technology, flawless deployment and great management of a strong community of freelancers.
… an A-team with outstanding execution skills
When we first met Sébastien and Arthur, we were very impressed by their pragmatism in achieving remarkable milestones with so little. In just a few years and without VC funding, they had managed to generate considerable revenue with a solid operating model.
Sébastien and Arthur have worked together at Air Liquide for several years and complement each other very well. Sébastien’s outstanding skills in complex B2B environments and Arthur’s ability to manage technical operations are what it takes to scale fast in the new mobility B2B landscape.
With their vision and grit to disrupt the market, they have a great opportunity ahead of them: to consolidate their leadership in the automotive retail market and expand across Europe to become the new operational standard for enabling massive expansion of carsharing services. Our goal and mission at Aster is to act as a catalyst through our ecosystem of industrial partners and to support the company in its ambition to become a global leader in strengthening the capacity of automotive players.