Nigeria’s Autochek, an auto-tech company making car ownership more accessible and affordable across Africa, has announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Egypt’s AutoTager to deepen its presence in North Africa and support the company’s ongoing growth.
Founded in 2020, Autochek aims to build digital solutions that will enhance and enable a seamless and safe automotive commerce experience across Africa. The company uses technology to transform the automotive buying and selling experience for African consumers, by creating a single marketplace for consumers’ automotive needs, from sourcing and financing to after sales support and warranties.
Acquisitions have been central to the startup’s speedy expansion strategy. Autochek launched in September 2020 having acquired automotive marketplaces Cheki Nigeria and Cheki Ghana from ROAM Africa. In addition to Ghana, it has expanded to Kenya and Uganda, with the latter two launches having again been accomplished by the acquisition of Cheki properties.
In May, it acquired Moroccan counterpart KIFAL Auto to drive its expansion into the North Africa region. And the startup, which last year raised a US$13.1 million seed funding round for West African expansion, in July moved into Ivory Coast, Senegal and other French-speaking countries with the acquisition of CoinAfrique.
Autochek is now deepening its presence in North Africa, and entering the Egyptian market, with the purchase of a majority stake in AutoTager, a venture-backed startup that is removing the friction from the car buying and selling process in Egypt, enabling easier access to vetted vehicles and financing for consumers, and connecting dealers with serious buyers and technology solutions to improve their operations.
The company was founded in 2021 by Amr Rezk, a serial entrepreneur who has founded and co-founded multiple successful companies, including Fundseer, a leading private equity GP/LP coordination platform.
Autochek now has active operations in nine countries across East, West and North Africa, with a partner-led footprint of more than 2,000 dealers and workshop locations.
“Amr’s background and track record is as impressive as it gets and I am delighted to have him on board. His experience will be invaluable as we enter the Egyptian market and continue on our mission to improve the automotive finance value proposition on the continent and catalyse more growth across the automotive ecosystem. There are many parallels between Autochek and AutoTager, and we are looking forward to building on these parallels to deliver more growth and success in the months and years to come,” said Olajide Adamolekun, Group CFO and co-founder of Autochek.
Rezk said he was “thrilled” to partner with Autochek to pursue several sizeable and unique opportunities in the automotive space.
“Autochek has deep automotive expertise and brings a proven playbook and several all-weather strategies that have been tested and validated in multiple complex high growth markets. The company’s track record of concurrently operating various business models in the automotive space is stellar and provides us with a wide menu of options and cutting-edge tools to offer AutoTager’s customers a truly unique proposition,” he said.
“We have very exciting plans and are confident that the global OEM and financing partnerships that Autochek has secured will also provide us with differentiated access allowing us to lead in our space while targeting high quality top decile returns.”
