The Motorist’s Organisation Limited (TMO) has successfully raised GBP750,000 of additional equity capital from private equity firm, Ashridge Capital.
TMO is an online platform allowing independent and franchised garages to provide consumers with like-for-like comparisons on a real-time availability and pricing basis for MOTs, car servicing and vehicle repairs.
This new capital will enable TMO to further develop and accelerate its penetration into the UK’s GBP10 billion aftersales market for vehicle maintenance. TMO was established by entrepreneur, Douglas Rotberg in 2012 and TMO’s online platform is the foundation for its recently announced partnership with The RAC, the UK automotive services company, which has created RAC Garage Compare.
David Sherratt, founder of Ashridge Capital has joined the board with immediate effect. The capital raising was led by Simon Ramery, founder director of Innovation Capital Advisors.
TMO’s UK-wide platform enables consumers to easily compare availability and pricing among local garages in real-time and with transparent pricing. It also helps garages to better manage their workshop availability and fill last minute slots.
Currently, just short of 4,000 garages are listed on RACGarageCompare.co.uk making it the largest online marketplace for garages in the UK. The majority of the garages on RACGarageCompare are enjoying the ability to take online completed and priced bookings for the first time.
The Motorist’s Organisation has also appointed two other non-executive directors; Craig Stevens, a former executive director of Trader Media Group, who was integral in taking Auto Trader from print media group to a GBP2 billion online publicly-quoted business; and David Riemenschneider, previously CEO of Clifford Thames, a data-provider to the automotive industry and a senior executive at Ford Europe.
David Sherratt, Managing Director of Ashridge Capital, says: “The Motorist’s Organisation is innovating in one of the last few areas of the economy that has yet to fully embrace digitalisation and online bookings and I am excited at the opportunity to make this investment.”
Douglas Rotberg, CEO of The Motorist’s Organisation, says: “This additional investment from Ashridge Capital will help us expand and take advantage of the exciting market opportunity available to us.”
Simon Ramery, Senior Director from Innovation Capital Advisors, says: “Having worked with the founders of The Motorist’s Organisation since its development phase it is excellent to see the business receive investment from a strong investor as well as close a strong partnership with the RAC that allows us to educate motorists of this fantastic new service that enables people to book garages the same way they do taxis, hotels and flights”.