Openbay has announced it closed an $8 million Series A round of financing. Shell Ventures LLC led the round with participation from existing investor Stage 1 Ventures and an additional strategic investor. The new round will be used to bring to market artificial intelligence (AI) enabled solutions for businesses that provide automotive repair services and to grow existing and new markets across all its offerings.

Openbay provides an online marketplace that empowers consumers to conveniently locate automotive service providers, compare price quotes for services and transact for automotive maintenance services.

“Openbay’s vision has not changed since its inception; fundamentally improve the experience for automotive repair and services for consumers, and the way that automotive care businesses acquire and service customers. Consumers expect their interactions across websites, social platforms, mobile and messaging apps to be engaging and interactive. This requires natural-language processing, machine learning and predictive analytics,” said Rob Infantino, founder and CEO of Openbay. “With fresh capital and depth of the resources our strategic and global investors bring to Openbay, the company is now well-positioned to grow and expand its offering globally.”

Commenting on the announcement, Huibert Vigeveno, executive vice president for Global Commercial, Shell, said, “Digital and services partnerships provide exciting prospects and new revenues for Shell’s Marketing businesses. Understanding customer needs and reducing customer friction is at the heart of our thinking. We scan the market for emerging technology trends and look for disruptive or transformational technologies, and investing in promising technologies such as Openbay is very much part of our future growth strategy.”