Chexingyi (车行易) has raised more than $10 million in a Series B round from taxi-hailing company Ucar (神州) to expand its car service system product line, according to 36Kr, a Chinese biztech media and also KrASIA parent company.
Founded in 2011, Chexingyi started out by providing car owners with services such as online traffic ticket reminder and query, and assisting in paying fines. It also established a customer service data platform. It then branched out into offline operations like annual vehicle inspections, license renewal and insurance before finally setting foot in the automotive aftermarket.
The “Tianluo” smart vehicle management system is Chexingyi’s main product for the automotive aftermarket. It expects to cooperate with hundreds of thousands of small- and medium-sized automotive aftermarket service providers countrywide and, through the system, help them expand their business scope, improve their operational and management efficiency, and reduce costs.
With the system in place, staff would only need to scan the license plates of customers’ cars with the Chexingyi’s mobile app and will be able to view vehicle information such as model, maintenance records, traffic offences and annual inspection history; the system can also satisfy demands such as trade-ins, used car appraisal and loans.
YIN Jian, founder and CEO of Chexingyi, said that the company expects to set up outlets in 100 cities countrywide by 2019 and sell its system to more than 30,000 car-wash services and repair and maintenance shops, thus serving car owners nationwide.
According to a report by data service BDR, the Chinese automotive aftermarket has reached 1 trillion yuan (approx. US$115 billion). Among the services that car owners use regularly, those related to traffic violations are the fourth most frequently used, with the top three being navigation, parking and car-washing.
“The efficiency of automotive services are often what concerns car owners the most,” said YIN Jian. “Over the past eight years, Chexingyi has helped car owners save more than 10 billion minutes in total.”
In addition to serving car owners in the aftermarket, sitting on massive vehicle and car owner data, Chexingyi also offers big data services to enterprises in other industries, for example, car navigation service providers like Baidu Map, AutoNavi and Tencent Maps, and ride-hailing platforms like Didi and Ucar. Its data can also help car manufacturers such as BMW and Benz develop in-car service systems, as well as be used in developing mobile auto service platforms by companies like Alibaba and Ping An.