Carhelper adopts new strategic focus

Founded in 2016 with the assistance of the Swiss Startup Group, the Zurich-based start-up Carhelper has undergone a strategic realignment. Against the background of a successful financing round led by the Swiss Startup Group, the company will in future be concentrating on business with other firms. Following the financing round, the company is also to be renamed Stratos Technologies AG.

“The financing round is a vote of confidence from our shareholders with regard to our successful strategy and international orientation”, comments Matthias Gerber, co-founder and CEO of Carhelper, in a press release. “Orchestrating the capital increase in times of Corona was a challenge and demonstrates the investors’ great farsightedness”, adds Max Meister, co-founder of the Swiss Startup Group and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Carhelper.

A comparison platform for car services focused on end customers (B2C) has, again with the help of the Swiss Startup Group, been transformed into a service provider for companies (B2B). “Our algorithm is used when and wherever maintenance and repair costs need to be calculated and verified”, Gerber states, before explaining: “We were able to successfully transfer this service from the Swiss B2C garage platform to the processes of European insurance companies, full-service leasing providers and international garage chains and thereby substantially expand our area of activity”.

The B2C garage platform will, however, remain an integral part of the company’s business model, the press release explains further. In the B2B market, the garage tools “Service Calculator” and “Garage Booster” are subject to particularly high demand. These have already been deployed by European garage chains in an attempt to digitalize and automate garage processes.

Using the Stratos software, full-service leasing companies and fleet management firms will be in a position to fully automate processes in connection with verification and authorization of costs for service and maintenance. This solution has been developed in partnership with the German company Business Gateway AG, which has been active in the international fleet market for two decades already. Thanks to the automated review of cost estimates from garages, insurance companies will also be able to “act quickly and competently”. Subsequent invoices can then be automatically verified and authorized for payment.