Sheryl Sandberg led a $10 million investment Self-inspectiona San Diego-based startup also backed by former Tesla president Jon McNeill’s DVx Ventures.
Founded in 2021, the startup has spent the last few years trying to disrupt the vehicle inspection process, making it possible to properly assess body damage on a car with as little technology as a smartphone camera. Self Inspection told TechCrunch it has already completed more than 1 million vehicle inspections for rental fleets, car finance companies, auctions and markets, with Stellantis’ financial services arm using the platform for corporate vehicles and lease inspections.
“The biggest tech companies are built by transforming industries that are huge, necessary and ripe for change,” Sandberg said in a statement to TechCrunch. “Vehicle condition drives billions of dollars in automotive decisions every year, yet data remains fragmented. That’s changing. We believe self-inspection will create the system of record the automotive industry needs.”
The funding round was led by her family office, Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners, with strategic investment from tire distributor US AutoForce and auto lender Westlake Financial. Early stage funds Costanoa Ventures, Rebellion Ventures and BrightCap Ventures also invested.
Self Inspection is one of several startups trying to use artificial intelligence to modernize the automotive industry. Toma and Flai are trying to improve the agency’s communication with the voice agents. BidBus enables dealerships to bid competitively on pre-owned cars.
Other startups like UVeye have taken a more infrastructure-level approach to modernizing vehicle inspections.
But a big part of Self Inspection’s scope is simplicity. The company sells its software to customers like Stellantis, and that software allows the customer to send a link to anyone with a smartphone so they can upload photos of a car. Self Inspection’s software guides the user through the process, ensuring the entire car is covered.
The company basically capitalizes on the fact that “everyone has a good camera” and “knows how to take pictures,” CEO Constantine Yaremtso told TechCrunch last year.
From there, the photos are compared to what Self Inspection described as “one of the largest datasets of damaged vehicles” to identify the presence and severity of any damage. After that, the startup’s software outputs a cost estimate and a detailed inspection report.
“What we deliver is actually a fully detailed PDF report that you would normally only get from a body shop, which will tell you what work needs to be done on the damage, how much it costs to repair, how many parts you need and so on,” Yaremtso said. He added that Self Inspection can also pull data from an OBD2 computer for even more detailed information.
Self Inspection told TechCrunch that its platform has already helped its customers reduce costs by more than $80 million and save more than 300,000 operating hours. The startup plans to use the new funding to build more products, reach more enterprise customers and expand into Europe.
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