After acquiring Hiree and ZapLuck, Quikr has now announced the acquisition of Stepni, a Bangalore based startup for an undisclosed sum. With this acquisition, the company will now also foray into vehicle maintenance services market. Quikr has now been focusing on five key business segments — automobiles, real estate, jobs, services and customer-to-customer sales. With this, the company is now expected to help Quikr strengthen car-related services under the QuikrCars vertical, as well as boost its services business, QuikrServices. As a part of the acquisition, the founders of Stepni will join Quikr, and the platform will be integrated. Customers will still be able to opt for the services and can access service providers within 5 km of their location. Commenting about this acquisition, Atul Tewari, head of QuikrCars and chief operating officer at Quikr, said,
At QuikrCars, we believe there is an acute need and a large opportunity for someone to innovate in the auto buying/selling space in India. In new cars, we are working closely with OEMs (original equipment makers) to address their marketing needs, and in used cars we are by far the number one destination for inspected, consumer-owned cars. Stepni’s business model will now allow us to develop a longer-term relationship with car owners as opposed to only at the point of buying-selling.
He believes that Stepni’s business model will allow them to develop a long-term relationship with car owners, beyond the point of just buying and selling. The company is now planning to scale vehicle maintenance services to all major cities over the next three months. Stepni was founded by Vinay Singh and Nikhil Nair in October 2015. It claims to have a network of more than 125 service centres across Bengaluru. Quikr is focusing on developing its business from a listing platform to a one-stop shop for used goods, along with facilitating logistics. It has been aggressively investing to build the five verticals by both acquiring companies and making strategic investments.
