We love it when Oresund-born startups make it big overseas: this time its Autobutler, the Danish digital platform for auto repairs and winner of the award for Best Startup of 2014, has taken Germany by storm, as reported by Trendsonline.dk.

Over the course of one single year, Autobulter has become the fastest-growing German workshop portal and is now equipped with many more workshops. Since  opening up to German customers in early 2014, Autobulter’s overseas success has grown rapidly: there are currently 20 German employees, helping the company handle the many customers and workshops, with  20,000 requests from vehicle owners in the last four months have been. Many established German workshop chains have already made agreements with the workshop portal,  including 1,500 new workshops in the last quarter of 2014 alone.

A New Playing Field

So how does CEO and co-founder, Christian Legêne, feel about stepping on new soil?

“The German market is different from Denmark, partly because the cars  are newer, partly because car owners are willing to go further to find a good quality workshop. And so the market is Europe’s largest, which provudes a lot of opportunities for growth to a company like ours…  At the same time German players have neglected the new digital media – which has opened a door for Autobutler. It shows that the Danish approach with open prices, user ratings and high quality standards for workshops could be the next export success. “

The market for digital repair platforms is a fierce one, but Autobutler is showing strength against its local competitors. In fact, Autobutler’s success in Germany has been so immense that Legêne  now spends the greater part of his time in the firm’s Berlin office.

“In Denmark, we have long had a dominant position and with support from foreign investors, we have now also obtained most of our competitors in ” explains CEO and co-founder Christian Legêne.

Much of this success can be attributed to the successful deal made with eBay during the autumn of 2014, which  granted the firm instant access to eBay’s 11 million users and established the Danes as serious players on the German market.  This strategic move will make Autobutler.de exceed the size of its Danish parent company with 100,000 individual queries, and will see that the German branch becomes the largest part of Autobutler’s business.

Today: Germany, Tomorrow: The World

So what’s next for the firm? Autobutler has doubled their revenue every year since its initiation in 2010. Their target for the new year 2015 is nothing short of gaining the title of  Europe’s largest online marketplace for car repairs.