11:31 am, August 9, 2024
Jigcar, a start-up founded by three former Cazoo team members, has announced a £750,000 pre-seed round led by Concept Ventures.
It has also seen participation from industry executives at the likes of Hendy Group, Motorpoint, Carwow, Impel and Cox Automotive.
Jigcar aims to increase stock turnover, reduce costs and improve the customer experience for multi-site dealer groups through logistics optimisation.
Despite only launching in January 2024, Jigcar has gained solid traction among 50 top UK dealers – already working with franchise groups such as Glyn Hopkin, Steven Eagell and Perrys Motor Group.
Its AI-driven solution manages and optimises logistics processes across all sites, internal drivers, trucks and third party logistics providers across a web platform and mobile app.
This surfaces group-wide costs and performance data, which are key components to ensuring a successful group-level logistics strategy.
Co-founders Elliott Perks, Rupert Wood and Jackson Jacob created Jigcar to address the automotive industry’s lack of a specialised solution for logistics.
It combines their automotive logistics experience at Cazoo with software experience from leading SaaS [software as a service] companies such as Personio and Fonoa.
They’ve since bolstered their team with the automotive experience of Jon Pollock as commercial director (ex-Nissan, Toyota, McLaren), and Simon Bottomley (ex-COO at Hendy; current COO at Vindis) as a non-executive director.
Perks, who is the CEO, highlights that Jigcar enables dealers to implement efficient logistics strategies across various models.
‘We’re excited to be bringing our vision for modern automotive logistics software to life.
‘A group-level logistics strategy is key to supporting a successful omnichannel sales model and Jigcar is here to support that, regardless of whether a group’s logistics is fully outsourced, fully internal or a hybrid of the two.
‘Integrations with key ecosystem players are a core part of our strategy, and we look forward to sharing more about these soon.’
Jigcar is already proving the value a software-enabled group-level logistics strategy can offer.
Its first customer, Glyn Hopkin, has seen significant improvements, including a 1.2-day reduction in car movement time, enabling an additional £200,000-plus profit from increased stock sales alongside a forecast six-figure savings in logistics costs this year alone.
Dean Quy, sales operations director at Glyn Hopkin, said: ‘Thanks to Jigcar, Glyn Hopkin have gained invaluable visibility over our operations spanning across all 34 sites.
‘It has truly revolutionised our logistics management, paving the way for smoother operations and greater collaboration within our motor group.’
Oliver Kicks, partner at Concept Ventures, explained why the company invested in Jigcar, saying ‘At Concept, we spend most of our time searching for founders with deep domain expertise, a strong eye for product and ambitions to build a globally significant company.
‘Elliott, Rupert and Jackson possess what we believe to be the right expertise and skills to tackle the large and globally relevant problem of logistics and planning across car dealer groups.’
Learn more about Jigcar at jigcar.com.
Pictured at top are (back row from left) commercial director Jon Pollock, chief technology officer Jackson Jacob, non-executive director Simon Bottomley and founding engineer Lewis Evans. Seated are chief product officer Rupert Wood, left, and Elliott Perks
