Tanzania’s Spana is a mobile application for a bouquet of affordable and quality automobile services, enabling individual car owners and businesses to request auto diagnostic checks, vehicle servicing, and repairs, or subscribe their vehicles to annual routine maintenance.
Founded in late-2023 by Julius Mbungo, Ebenezery Kimaro, and John Mwapinga, the Spana app allows users to access reliable mechanics, their car’s maintenance history, track expenses, and receive service reminders, among other things.
Mbungo told Disrupt Africa that, back in 2022, he had conducted a survey of car owners, mechanics and garage owners to learn about how car owners access services for their cars and the challenges they face when it comes to dealing with mechanics.
“We talked to more than 800 people, and the results were astonishing. Eighty per cent weren’t very happy with existing solutions, and those who were at least satisfied complained about the rip-off from some of the service providers,” he said.
Tanzania, like most Sub-Saharan African countries is a used-car dominated market, by a ratio of 90:10, where cars as old as 20-years still find their way onto the roads.
“The used cars are powered by after-market spare parts where most are fake, leading to frequent breakdowns and car owners spending four times more on maintenance. There’s also a lack of expertise and modern tools,” said Mbungo.
Spana is on a mission to provide efficient, affordable, and transparent auto repair and maintenance, combating counterfeit spare parts.
“We want to foster a vehicle maintenance culture in Tanzania, helping customers with repairs and spare part procurement along the way. We want to prolong the longevity of Tanzanians’ vehicles and keep our roads and people safe,” said Mbungo.
Currently, Spana is bootstrapping, but Mbungo said it plans to open a fundraising round soon.
“Since our inception, we have 30 workshops registered on our platform, and 180 mechanics, with over 1,000 cars registered,” he said.
The company currently operates in two Tanzanian cities – Dar es Salaam and Arusha – with plans to expand to Dodoma and Zanzibar later this year. Spana monetises via a 10-30 per cent commission charged to partner garages and mechanics, as well as from inhouse services, mobile mechanics, and the supply of spare parts.
“But we are looking forward to adding more services on the platform, such vehicle insurance and vehicle repair loan,” said Mbungo.
