Mobile car valeting venture revs up
An Edinburgh-based car valeting venture has embarked on a £1 million investment round as it looks to expand across the UK.
Fresh Mobile Car Valeting has also pushed the button on a new app that aims to “revolutionise the way people manage their car care”.
The firm now has 28 operators and 21,000 customers across the UK, adding new locations in Liverpool, Warrington, Bolton, Wigan, Stockport, Swansea and Kent during 2021.
Having strengthened coverage in Scotland’s Central Belt and the north of England over the last 18 months, bosses plan to increasingly target the Midlands and south of England in 2022.
Chief executive Sam Brennan said the business was in a strong position to capture a major slice of the £1.2 billionplus UK market.
He said: “We want to revolutionise the way people manage their car care and customer satisfaction is absolutely central to that. The market of 31 million users across the UK is worth more than £1.2bn so making it as simple as possible to deal with us is vital.
“Launching a new app does exactly that. Fresh is expanding rapidly because we provide a fantastic customer service across all our franchises and people are sick and tired of
sub-standard care.” The firm plans to add features to the app over the next 12 months, and in the longer term is aiming to add car services such as tyre and oil changing, as well as scratch removal to the overall offering.
Brennan, who founded the business from the back of his father’s car in 2015, said: “It’s great to get the app launched and out there, and we’re in the process of adding online payment and a subscription service, just two of a number of
features we’ll be adding in the months ahead.”
The venture is backed and advised by a number of leading tech entrepreneurs and figures from Scotland’s business scene including Ambergreen founder Tino Nombro; Natwest Group’s director of public policy Michael Crow; Alex Watts, founder of Lettingweb. com and Kingsford Estates; and Paywizard Group founder Jonathan Guthrie.
Crow, Watts and Guthrie are all non-executive directors on Fresh’s board while Nombro, who sold digital marketing firm Ambergreen to Canada’s DAC Group in 2016, was appointed as the firm’s chairman last year.
Commenting on the external investment round, to support the company’s next phase of growth, Brennan added: “We are in an exciting place at the moment, doubling revenue on the platform at the beginning of the year, bringing three new people into the team and launching some significant tech updates. Bookings are now completely automated across all our UK locations, and we’re achieving high customer satisfaction levels. We feel like we’ve proved the business model and now it’s time to go for some external investment and take things to the next level.”
Nombro said: “Sam and the team have made incredible progress over the last year with a product.”