Catalan startup Cafler, a leading platform for everything the car user needs, announced a €8 million seed round led by Seaya Ventures. In addition to Wayra as a strategic partner, the round had investors such as Banco Sabadell, Encomenda, Dídac Lee, René de Jong and Jacky Abitbol, partner of Cathay Innovation.
Cafler offers car users from on-demand services at home -such as car wash, maintenance, and petrol-, to (via partners) insurance, renting, parking, and buying/selling cars. Their vision is to make the lives of car users easier, both conveniently and economically, and thus disrupt the current consumer paradigm in the car industry. The company already operates in more than 3 countries, serving more than 100.000 users, and more than 1.000 partners in its ecosystem. Cafler has raised close to €10 million since its inception.
The fresh capital will boost its national and international development and growth. Founded by Ricard Guillem and Íñigo Diego in 2021, is an application that facilitates any management that vehicle users, both individuals and professionals, may need. To do this, companies can offer the full range of services that a vehicle needs throughout its life cycle, from maintenance, repairs or tyre changes, to any management such as insurance, administrative procedures, etc.
Ricard Guillem, founder of Cafler, said: “Data is the backbone of our platform. We have created a solid data lake and incorporated artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, which allows us to offer a more proactive experience to our users, for example: predictive maintenance, personalised cross-selling suggestions and visualisation of relevant information at all times”.
Cafler offers its clients a platform with flexible and customised interfaces according to the needs of each segment, so that they can contract its services through its API or through integrations with its mobile application. Cafler is also developing fleet management software and a dashboard where customers can visualise all their vehicle data.
Marta Antúnez, director of Wayra Barcelona, pointed out: “Cafler is a platform that is transforming and digitising the large service sector around the vehicle, a sector that is still traditional and atomised, in which we think there is a great opportunity to improve the user experience, offering more data transparency, more convenience and more access to the best prices”. Antúnez believes that “there are very interesting synergies with Telefónica’s commitment to the mobility vertical and with the Movistar Car and Movistar Car Protect services, so we are delighted to become a strategic partner and incorporate them into our portfolio and accompany them in their expansion and growth”.
Cafler works with major clients including brands such as Renault, Tesla, Virtuo, Hertz, Michelin, Sixt, Turo, Norauto, Feuvert, among others. The company has performed close to 150,000 services since its inception just a year and a half ago, and is now available in three geographies where it has achieved operational profitability, and growing at triple-digit annual growth.
