Pakistan’s digital automotive services company Okayker has raised $700,000 in seed funding from multiple institutional investors including Orbit Startups, Cur8 Capital, FRIM Ventures, and Sabr Capital.
Along with this, multiple local and international angel investors have believed in the startup’s mission and shown unwavering support.
Okayker is on a mission to digitize the $90 billion automotive repair and maintenance industry of the MENAP region.
Faizan Khan from FRIM Ventures said, “FRIM Ventures is excited to support Okayker in this journey. The autocare space is highly fragmented with immense information asymmetry.
It aims to solve this problem with enhanced transparency and control for the customer. While having a disruptive business model, Okayker’s financial plan sees a clear path to profitability which is critical for a viable and sustainable business model”.
In January 2021 Nashit, Hasnain, and Asjad started Okayker with 3 technicians, providing basic periodic maintenance services at customers’ doorstep. Starting with only 3 orders per day, due to great retention and referral of customers, Okayker has successfully fixed more than 10,000 cars in the last 26 months.
During the journey, more than 250 vendors were onboarded to supply 30,000+ SKUs across Karachi to a network of 850 workshops across multiple pockets in Karachi.
Nashit Naviwala, founder of OkayKer expressed the importance of revolutionizing the auto care industry.
“My family has been involved in the automotive industry for the past 40 years, so I understand the challenges it entails. The majority of the players in this industry still operate on pen and paper. Our goal is to revolutionize the automotive sector by using digital solutions and focusing on educating customers. We want to create a platform where people can easily access reliable information about car parts and services, so they can make informed decisions,” added Nashit.
It is during this time that Okayker’s team realized that the existing roadside workshop has three major challenges:
- Very low utilization of 20% during weekdays and 70% on weekends.
- High logistical hassle in procuring parts directly from the central market
- No digital systems to record transactions or customer details
Okayker has now built its own fleet of technicians. Today a workshop owner can record all their customer orders, delegate tasks to technicians, source auto parts from a network of vendors, and provide their customers the convenience of online payments simply by using OkayCore.
A Pakistan-based private equity firm commented, “We believe we can help accelerate OkayKer’s growth in Pakistan and help expand in the region. We will also help realize OkayKer’s vision to be a digital company through the implementation of IoT and data analytics”.
For the coming years, Okayker’s aim is to expand across Pakistan starting from Karachi all the way to Khunjerab, while launching the first automotive emergency service through their network of workshops.
“My income doubled after working with Okayker and I was able to fund the marriage of my sister,” Mohammad Salman, Workshop Owner, Okayker’s partner workshop.
Okayker is currently working on partnering with lubricant brands and has recently signed an MoU with Mobil, to help counter the prevalent problem of counterfeit products in the market.
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