Ozon, a Mexican startup that buys, fixes, and sells motorcycles, announced it raised $25M in debt and $4M in a seed round. While Architect Capital provided the debt capital, the funds that participated in the seed round were 1984.vc, K50 Ventures, Bridge Partners, Angel Ventures, Magma Partners, and Simma Capital. Some of the angel investors were Adalberto Flores from Kueski and José Velez from Bold.
The company was born in Colombia, but nowadays 90% of its operations are located in Mexico. Ozon’s goal is to facilitate the purchase and sale of motorcycles while avoiding the risk of fraud. The startup also offers liquidity to those who want to sell their vehicles, and credit to those who want to buy one.
The startup’s platform targets delivery app workers that need motorcycles to work but cannot afford them because they lack credit history, bank accounts, or because they are immigrants. To determine each person’s ability to pay, the motorcycle buyer only shows the income they have earned in the last few months:
“We use non-traditional channels to review people’s income and provide them credit,” Daniel Otero, co-founder and CEO of Ozon explained.
Ozon offers motorcycle buyers credit for one year, with weekly payments, a timeframe that is adapted to payment times of delivery platforms such as Rappi or Uber Eats. Clients who want to sell their motorcycle can do so at a fair market price and are promised to receive the payment 24 hours after the offer has been accepted.
The company expects to sell 6,000 motorcycles by the end of 2022. Daniel Otero also stated which are the startup’s plans going forward:
“We secured the financial capital to continue with the expansion within Mexico. Our goal is to close the year with operations in the country’s main cities, including Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Querétaro, consolidating our position as the first credit alternative for those who have no credit history.”
