There are over a billion cars on the road and billions of parts made to go into them. Every manufacturer writes its catalogue differently. One wrong digit and the panel does not fit. Partly, out of Christchurch, is trying to fix that.
How it works
Founder and CEO Levi Fawcett started Partly in 2020. The company has built what it calls a foundation model purpose-built for the automotive repair supply chain, trained on five years of industry data. It identifies the right part, sources it and handles the logistics for repair businesses. General AI guesses at this. In a repair shop a guess is a returned part and a car still on the hoist.
The raise
Partly raised a US$50M Series B in June led by DST Global Partners, the firm that backed Meta, Airbnb and Spotify early. The round reportedly valued the company at US$500M. Existing backers include Blackbird and Octopus Ventures. According to the company, it now has over 1,000 customers and the UK is its biggest market.
The move
The money is going into the US, which Partly calls the world’s largest automotive repair market. It is setting up a new American headquarters in Austin, Texas, with Fawcett and the core executive team moving there. Christchurch keeps the engineering.
My read
This is a great raise for a New Zealand company. But read the rest: that made two ANZ companies in one week moving their head office to the US. The engineering staying in Christchurch is good news. Where the decisions get made is a different question.