Autochek Africa
“Can financing be the wedge that turns Africa's fragmented used-car market into a single digital automotive commerce platform?”
Founded2020
HQLagos, Nigeria
FoundersEtop Ikpe
Total raised$16.5M+ (disclosed through seed)
Latest roundSeed, 2021
IndustryVertical SaaS / Automotive
The story
Autochek was founded in 2020 as an asset-light automotive marketplace after CEO Etop Ikpe left Cars45. The company's key insight was that vehicle sales in Africa were bottlenecked by financing access, not inventory — so it built partnerships with banks (Access Bank, Stanbic, I&M, ABSA) and fintechs to originate car loans, using open banking (Okra) to underwrite. In 2022 it formalised the financing thesis by spinning out Autochek Financial Services, positioning itself as a lending orchestrator and marketplace across 8 African markets.
Last 12 months
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Product timeline
2020
Autochek founded by Etop Ikpe; acquires Cheki's Nigeria and Ghana marketplaces· acquisition
2020
$3.4M pre-seed to build asset-light auto marketplace and financing platform· banking
2021
$13.1M seed round; expansion across West, East and North Africa· pivot
2022
Partnership with Kenyan fintech Pezesha to enable SME asset financing· lending
2022
Launch of Autochek Financial Services arm to consolidate vehicle financing offerings· lending
Acquisitions
Same company
Autochek Africa was analysed under more than one name on the same domain, so its stack is split across these dossiers. Each was analysed independently and may name providers the others do not.
The stack
3 layers disclosed in Autochek Africa’s embedded-finance stack
Lending
Access BankStanbic BankI&M BankABSAHallmarkFairMoneyRenmoneyPezeshaAutochek Auto Loan (up to 48 months)Autochek Cash Loan (₦2M–₦50M, vehicle as collateral)Autochek Financial ServicesSME asset financing (via Pezesha)
Open banking
in the full report
KYC
in the full report
Accounting gap: none
2 more providers across 2 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.