Stratim is a one-stop service that helps car fleet operators keep their vehicles find repair shops for maintenance or if a car in service breaks down, schedule services, and pay for them.
It tracks the movements of cars, so it’s easy to book local services if a car breaks down on the motorway, for example and Stratim can use the information it holds to provide better insights for the businesses it’s servicing too. For example, it can suggest ways a client can cut the costs associated with maintaining their fleet.
The potential for the business is even greater in future, when autonomous cars hit the roads and businesses need to make sure their vehicles can be fixed, even when there’s no driver to call up maintenance services.
Founded by Sean Behr, who previously founded car share service Zirx, the aim of the company was to move away from consumer services, to create a business that has real value for fleet operators. If a car breaks down while on a job, this can cost a business thousands, so it’s imperative the vehicle can be fixed as quickly as possible.
He also discovered that the margin for consumer-facing services were pretty low – maybe only 10%, so from a business point of view, it just wasn’t a sustainable model for profit.
Stratim’s customers include Ford Smart Mobility unit Chariot and on-demand car rental company Maven, which was developed by General Motors. and currently operates across San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Toronto, San Diego, Milwaukee, and Austin.
Clients are charged on a per-transaction basis, so when they need to book in a service, Stratim makes a cut and this not only makes it affordable for the customer, but means Stratim itself can make more profit compared to charging a recurring fee for the software.
