Leading online-to-offline Korean car app Cardoc has gained a strategic investment from oil refiner GS Caltex, with plans to further expand its offline services.
The app lets users compare prices between automobile repair businesses and is currently used by over 700,000 drivers. Not only can users quickly and easily get estimates for repairs, the service also provides useful information, such as car maintenance and guides about what to do in the event of an accident.
Cardoc previously gained investment from Kakao subsidiary K Venture Group in 2015, and with GS Caltex’s latest funding plans to actively expand its offline products and services. This includes promoting the expansion and growth of Cardoc Techshop, its import car maintenance service, by utilizing GS Caltex’s infrastructure and network. The company will also use the partnership to further develop its new bodyshop and car wash services, and create other new products in the future.
“By bringing together Kakao’s knowledge of the automobile aftermarket and GS Caltex’s assets and competitive power, we hope to create an innovative and fruitful O2O service.” said Junho Lee, CEO of Cardoc.
Cardoc was first launched in 2013 and has accumulated 700,000 downloads over that time. It’s now estimated that 30% of imported car owners have the app installed, with an average of 1.3 billion won (USD $1,082,920) per month being spent by app users to make actual repairs.
