CarDash wants to take the hassle out of getting your car repaired by picking the vehicle up from your work or home and bringing it to a certified auto shop. The Menlo Park, California-based startup today announced the close of a $5.3 million round of funding.
Customers book a slot on the CarDash website and either leave the car keys at the front desk or coordinate with a CarDash representative. The car is then serviced or repaired and is generally returned to the customer by 5 p.m.
“Over 95 percent of services are completed the same day as we get an express lane at our service partners and we ensure that necessary parts are ordered in advance,” wrote CarDash cofounder and CEO Yinon Weiss, in an email to VentureBeat. If a service takes longer than a day, CarDash typically offers a free Lyft or Uber ride to customers and delivers the vehicle to their home.
The startup partners with various parties, including dealerships, chains, body shops, windshield repair centers, tire centers, and detail and car wash vendors. “We put all our partners through a thorough assessment that evaluates them on their quality, experience, pricing, and capacity,” wrote Weiss. “Only about 15 percent of the shops we identify are accepted into our network,” he added.
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The CarDash service costs about the same or less than the typical mechanic down the street, says Weiss — oil changes start at around $45, for example. The startup also services electric vehicles for things like tire rotations and dent/scratch repairs.
According to Weiss, CarDash currently provides its services in the Bay Area to 50 companies, which offer the service to their employees. “Many of our customers who sign up are employees at Google, SAP, VMWare, and Yelp,” he wrote.
The startup does offer to fill up your gas tank but does not claim to compete with on-demand companies that focus exclusively on fuel delivery. One such example is mobile gas station startup Booster, which announced a $20 million funding round last week.
CarDash is part of Y Combinator’s current batch and will be pitching in front of investors at YC’s demo days in two weeks. But it seems that with $5.3 million in capital under its belt, the startup is doing rather well.
Today’s funding combines both the pre-seed, in which Afore Capital, NextView Ventures, and NextGen Venture Partners participated, and the seed round, which was co-led by Index Ventures and Felicis Ventures.
The new money will be used to grow the engineering team and further develop the product.
Founded in 2016, CarDash currently has eight employees.
