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NEW Zealand technology company, Partly, has raised $NZ46 million ($A43.4 million) to grow its automotive parts business that connects parts makers, car manufacturers, buyers and sellers in a unique online marketplace.

Founded by four engineers and technicians, Partly will use the funds to support its R&D program and increase its team in Australia and New Zealand.

It is aiming for a slice of the global $A1.9 trillion automotive parts market which co-founder and CEO Levi Fawcett said is “one of the most fragmented and least digitised areas” of the automotive sector.

“Partly was born out of a huge unsolved data problem,” he said.

Mr Fawcett said: “The automotive industry today has millions of vehicle configurations, and hundreds of millions of parts, but only manual and paper-based systems to link them. 

“Our mission is to connect the world’s parts by building cloud based infrastructure to connect buyers and sellers at the right point in time.

Levi Fawcett

“We’re building the core infrastructure for anyone, anywhere, wanting to manage, sell or buy automotive parts online.”

Its database uses vehicle definitions to link parts to vehicles.

“We’ve laid down the groundwork standardising how parts and vehicles communicate, making it easy for industry players to access, create, maintain and distribute fitment data,” Mr Fawcett said.

 “It’s an incredibly exciting time for Partly and we’re only getting started. We’re thrilled to be rapidly growing and scaling our business in an industry primed for disruption.

“This is an extremely difficult technical problem, and the people we have are key to our success so far.”

Partly was co-founded by Levi Fawcett, a former Rocket Lab engineer, alongside Nathan Taylor, Mark Song and Evan Jia, who saw the massive data problem emerge from their former startup, an e-commerce platform.

Co-founders: Evan Jia, Levi Facwett, Nathan Taylor, Mark Song

They focused on building Partly out of what they said was a desire to tackle a major, data-driven problem at global scale. 

Existing investors include Peter Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab, and also supported by Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of design platform Figma; Akshay Kothari, co-founder and COO of Notion; and Connor Theilmann, VP Business Operations at Service Titan. 

The fundraising was led by an existing investor, Blackbird Ventures, along with US investors I2BF and K5 Ventures.

Blackbird Ventures partner Samantha Wong said: “Opportunities to meet ambitious founders like Levi and Nathan and invest right at the beginning is exactly what Blackbird was built to do. 

“They are working on solving an unsexy but very complex problem, elegantly, on a global scale. The product and customer momentum is incredible, and we’re proud to be strengthening our pre-seed investment into Partly by leading this round.” 

Early investor Peter Beck said: “The progress the team has made in just over a year is impressive. They are certainly one of the most exciting startups in New Zealand.

“The global ambition of Kiwi startups like Partly are really contributing to New Zealand’s tech reputation on the world stage,” he said.

By Neil Dowling

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