Telangana based car washing platform honc has raised $400,000 in pre-Seed round funding led by Amey Mashelkar (Head of JioGenNext), in partnership with Jasminder Singh Gulati (Co-founder at NowFloats), Dholakia Ventures, Dr. Raghunath A Mashelkar (Independent Director at RIL), Nilesh Patel (Leadership team, Cisco systems) and 100X.VC.
The startup plans to utilize the fresh funds to expand its partner network across Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Gurugram in the next 12 months. honc plans to upgrade its tech stack to scale across gated communities and business parks using location intelligence and user review systems.
The company will further deploy the capital to supercharge onboarding, training, and safety of the partners on the platform.
Speaking on the fundraise, Niranjan Seelam, Co-founder & CEO, honc said, “The fund infusion is a testament to investor’s confidence in the rising demand for a doorstep solution. In the last year, we were able to add over 200 partners to our network. We carry out 4,000 car washes per day in Hyderabad alone. We aim to make the traditional car wash industry efficient, environmentally friendly, and a customer-centric one.”
“With our technology and process interventions, we simplified the onboarding and training processes for our partners. We are also introducing women into the wash segment across business parks. We believe this will untap the largely blue-collar workforce segment,” Rahul Marwar, Co-founder & Director of Sales, honc said.
The company enabled its partners to increase their monthly income by 100% in the last six months. Furthermore, honc’s eco-friendly washes have helped save nearly 1,50,000 liters of water every month across gated communities.
Commenting on the fundraise, Ninad Karpe, Partner at 100X.VC said, “We all struggle to keep our cars clean every day. The existing options are broken, leaving car owners dissatisfied with bitter experiences. With its tech-first approach, honc made it efficient and simplified the whole process of keeping our cars clean. Car wash is the everyday touchpoint in the car owner’s mind, we believe honc is well poised to play a bigger role in scaling to other services as well.”
“Today’s fundraise reflects the strength of honc’s business model, execution capabilities, and the incredible opportunity ahead. The past year steered in a new normal, changing people’s perspective of a car wash at the doorstep. After understanding our consumer behavior we tend to bring in many customized updates to our app. Our mission is to deliver care services to every doorstep in India,” Viraj, Co-founder & Product Owner, honc added.