Cars are great – until they break down, need servicing or a mechanical inspection. Then owning a car can be quite a hassle.
Ricard Guillem knows this all too well. The 19-year-old from Barcelona grew up in a family of car dealers and servicemen. Guillem – who was “born with a phone in his hand,” as he puts it – felt the family business was, for lack of a better word, outdated.
“So many industries have been turned on their head by technology – Netflix with movies, Uber with taxis, Deliveroo with food delivery. But there’s nothing like that for servicing or repairing your vehicle,” Guillem tells me.
That was the inspiration for Cafler. In 2021, at just 16 years old, Guillem co-founded the technology startup to make car ownership less of a hassle.
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“The idea was to design a platform where car users can access everything they need with just one click,” he explains.
Cafler customers can order a driver to pick up their car from home, work or even the gym. The driver will then take it for maintenance, repairs, washing or refueling. The company can even handle the paperwork for traffic fines or change of ownership.
The startup has an app, but it does most of its business through more than 100 partners, including Tesla, VW and Mercedes. Selected car dealerships or service centers in Spain, France or the UK (where the company operates) offer Cafler as a value-added service.
Focus on growth
I first came across Cafler last year at the Valencia Digital Summit, where the company won the Startup Contest pitch competition in the Growth category.
Since then, the company has grown tenfold, says Guillam. To date, Cafler has provided over 100,000 services and employs 60 people in offices in Barcelona, Madrid, Paris and London.
In September, the startup raised a considerable €$8 million in a funding round led by Spain-based Seaya Ventures. While Guillem did not disclose exact financials, he said Cafler has now “passed the $5 million net revenue mark.”
“Right now we are focused on growth,” he says. “We plan to expand into new countries in Europe and beyond very soon.”
Cafler is in the process of adding more services to its platform, including replacement vehicles, valet parking and tow trucks in case of breakdowns. The company has also started to harness the power of data and—you guessed it—AI.
“We have huge amounts of data that we can use to train machine learning algorithms to make tailored suggestions to the user,” explains Guillem.
For example, the AI knows if it has rained in your area and your car might be dirty. Then it asks: “Would you like a car wash?”
The people who service your vehicle usually know a lot more about it than you do. This information – from brake fluid levels to tire tread – can be used to gain predictive insights.
“Soon we will be able to tell you more or less when your car needs new tires or even a new engine before you break down on the side of the road,” says Guillem.
TNW is a strategic partner for VDS 2024, which will take place on October 23 and 24 in the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia. The eventwhich serves as a meeting place for entrepreneurs, startups, corporates and investors, is expected to bring together over 2,500 startups and attract over 12,000 attendees from over 100 countries. Super early bird discounts are available until June 15th – get your ticket here!
