DriverSide, a startup that is taking the unique approach of helping users maintain their cars rather than buy or sell them, has closed a $5.3 million Series B funding round led by Allegis Capital, with Catamount Ventures and the company’s founders also participating in the round. As part of the deal, Allegis’ Bob Ackerman will be joining the DriverSide board of directors. The startup has now raised a total of $8.4 million.
DriverSide founder Trevor Traina says that because of the economic downturn, DriverSide has actually been able to thrive where other car sites (and the automotive industry in general) have have been hit hard. A recent study conducted by DriverSide and Kelton found that 82% of car owners are keeping their car longer because of the recession. Instead of looking to buy or sell their vehicles, most people are buckling down with their current cars and are interested in keeping them running for as long as possible, as cheaply as possible.
That’s where DriverSide comes in. The site helps take the guesswork out of car-repairs, offering firm estimates for the cost of parts and labor, along with advice from certified mechanics and an editorial staff headed by a Yahoo Autos veteran. The site has grown to 250,000 registered users since its launch last June, and is also forming partnerships with a number of automotive companies. And unlike most other car sites, where users only visit very sporadically (namely when they’re looking to buy a new car), DriverSide can attract long-term users.
In conjunction with today’s funding announcement, DriverSide has also announced that it has partnered with Integrated Services, the maker of LubeSoft, a POS system for managers of lube shops. DriverSide will be offering LubeSoft customers online customer virtual “garages”.
Good post. Could be an interesting niche to exploit.
nice one. im looking it..
Yeah..Good one..Interesting concept.
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Here in India, we in the upper casts don’t need a site like this because it is nickles and dimes to simply drop our cars off in the slum parts of town for repair. In fact, the slum dwellers are willing to come to our houses to do regular maintanence on a weekly basis.
Right. We, the slum dwellers fix cars, then we go back and spam Techcrunch…
I never actually thought this would fly, but after a few friends of mine had car problems, they would search online and forms… this could be a good niche and the go to place to get car help…
Nice idea but the repair quotes weren’t accurate for me. Tried RepairPal.com and it seemed to be closer. Like the concept, but they need better, more accurate data to be helpful.
Interesting concept, it’s just a matter of time before they jump into other areas such as aircraft, atv and motorcycles which cost as much if not more than your average car.
Jon
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Very nice, I didn’t know such website exists. This will help me out big time.
TechFilipino
http://www.takeoverpayment.com will be in the same niche soon…
decent domain name kinda catchy. still if its just for maintenance its not enough. remember most people can do there own maintenance and will when they have no money or a job. and aaa can if it dont already offer the same thing.
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mely when they’re looking to buy a new car), DriverSide can attract long-term users.
In conjunction with today’s funding announcement, e
well i did visit the site, good idea for such economy we are in
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Great but can we have a version of the site for the UK where the drivers door is on the correct side
Nice concept
I wouldn’t call the things “repairs”…the only things they cover is general maintenance. I dunno about you, but I don’t need to go online to see how much I need to pay for an oil change.
The site does offer a lot of information, and looks like its more than it is, but when you get down to it, you see that it doesn’t really offer that much.
Agree, the start of the article says:
“DriverSide, a startup that is taking the unique approach of helping users maintain their cars rather than buy or sell them”
I have a ‘99 MB SLK230. Went to the site see about a front-right fog light that is half burned to see how much does it cost and order one to replace it.
After I specifically entered the year, brand, and model number, the system provided me with a lot of parts for other cars! And the list was pitifully samall. Nothing for my car!
The concept for the site is OK, but needs a huge database for parts and the program needs to stick to the car in question. After all it did ask me for the year, brand and model.
I can just as easy call the dealer and get a price.
Very good, thanks
Very Smart! I’m always felt that mechanics have historically been able to take advantage of the regular users because most like myself are ignorant about the cost of repairs. This can definitely decrease uncertainty in the space.
Nicely design site and clean look, even the domain name is easy to remember. i’m pretty sure it will go a long tail success.
Nat
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Got to admit this is a great idea. In the metro NY area the hourly rate for the most auto dealers is $100 to $130 an hour – non dealers are anywhere from $95 – $125 to do maintenance. This is nuts. I recently went to the dealer and watched as they told almost every person that they needed to do xxx at a cost of $$$$. I noticed that it was the same gibberish for almost everyone. Hopefully, Driverside or someone else can get some real info out to the public.
thats just the cost of living in NY, nothing surprising. take a shit hole city like Vancouver, WA … most mechanics will be happy for $20/hr
I believe 1800Radiator is already doing this too.
at least one mature well-capitalized company doing this:
repairpal.com
haha- happy to see that they were smart enough not to put Adam on the Board.
Did Techcrunch forget this space already has someone for the past year called RepairPal? They even have it profiled on their site, no mention in this article, surprising.
http://www.crun...mpany/repairpal
Best of luck to them. Nice to see some businesses thriving during the general downturn.
Repairpal.com is a much better site. Driverside doesnt have a fraction of the quality data.
Good idea, though the site is still very light on content; this could easily be attributed to its age. Repairpal.com, which a number of folks have remarked on here, is also not all that helpful (yet), given that so few mechanics/shops are truly rated.
On the heels of what the Web did for car buying years ago, this could be the next big deal re. the Internet forcing transparency on a historically opaque and inefficient industry. Ratings on a decent sample of mechanics, dealers, shops, etc. in most zips is the next important step. Once these sites allow mechanics within a user-specified geographic range to bid on jobs in real-time (or close to it) – a la eBay auctions – we’ll start seeing significant consumer value for which users (and/or advertisers) may well be willing to pay.
I like these concepts because they are fairly concrete and the average joe would actually use them. Maybe even pay $10 a year or donate a few bucks to the site if it actually helps. Right now you have to search a model specific, often quite technical, forum database to learn about an issue your car has. justaskgemalto is forming a similar model around digital security, an easy to use but thorough head quarters of sorts for privacy/data/security needs.