Chutcha is a used car app developed and serviced by Mr Pick. In the use car O2O space, it is widely known as a market leader. Mr. Pick through their extensive experience in online platforms, provides O2O business solutions. The startup's experience has been gathered from IT experts from companies like Naver, Neowiz and Nexon.
Recently, Mr Pick confirmed East Gate Partners will invest US$585k into the company. Of course, behind East Gate Partners is the well known Daum's Kakao Youth Establishment Fund.
Kakao Youth Establishment Fund targets investments into technologies and business models that enables them to extent their service and offerings. Typical investments are in technologies for online to offline (O2O), online distribution networks and internet content production, so their latest investment into Mr Pick does not come as a surprise.
In Korea, the used car market is now two times the size of the new car market having outgrown it in recent years. However the platforms and technologies to support this industry have yet to catch up. At the moment there are many deficiencies and there is an urgent need for a platform that provides fast and accurate information to customers in an easy and seamless manner.
Chutcha is unlike other existing used car services that provide the photos, basic details of the vehicle, and contact details. A distinguishing feature of the app is its ability to not only provide key information on the vehicles specifications, but its ability to provide Clean Engine ratings, safety statistics, detailed information on the dealership and their past performance, and offers a personal visit by the dealership. The service also allows customers to sell vehicles through ‘Cutcha Auction’.
Lee Eun Jae, the CEO of ‘East Gate Partners, estimates that the growth in the national used car market is now in in full-swing and much like an industrialization process. As witnessed in other developed country, in the process of industrialization the requirement for its supporting IT information platform is magnified. The key investment decision for ‘Mr. Pick’ was ultimately based on its capability to provide an O2O IT platform in the field of used car sales.
Choi Chul Hoon and Song U Dee, both representatives of ‘Mr. Pick’ supported that this type of platform for the used car market would be competitive. Although the immediate focus is the Korean market, there is huge potential to expand into other Asian countries.”.
After launching its service in January this year, ‘Chutcha’ has been getting many positive feedback from its customers. It has already exceeded 20M views with 100K downloads. It currently sits in top spot for Korean market app downloads in both Google and Apple app shops.
