BMW Financial Taps 6 Startups For ‘Collaboration Lab’

BMW Financial Services is hosting six startups for its “Collaboration Lab,” which will allow the fledgling companies to develop their ideas and utilize the captive’s resources over a 10-week period at BMW’s offices outside Columbus, Ohio.

The six companies were selected from 212 applicants and will have an opportunity to partner with the captive following the completion of the program. Last month, the insurance startup Wrisk — which was included in BMW’s 2016 Innovation Lab accelerator program — was selected as the sole supplier of BMW and MINI car insurance.

Now, these new startups will vie for a similar partnership arrangement with the captive. The specializations range from insurance products to digitizing the customer journey.

Two of the companies — Supermoney and Bloom — were brought on to help in “building a blockchain strategy,” according to the press release. Supermoney is developing a digital wallet for consumers to pay with a QR code, and Bloom seeks to verify customer identities and verify credit history accuracy without storing a customer’s raw data on the servers.

Startup carLABS is using artificial intelligence to automate sales and marketing. It hopes to increase conversion and return on marketing spend for car sellers.

Two of the startups — Omniscience and Motion Auto Insurance — are focused on improving data and analytics. Omniscience uses its analytics platform to scan “real-world” data and wants to bring that technology to underwriting and capital modeling. Motion Auto Insurance offers insurance as a service from a mobile app that can be used for car sharing, autonomous driving tech, and other forms of car ownership.

Wrisk USA is the other company selected for the program following in the footsteps of its UK counterpart. The company allows users to manage disparate insurance products from one app.

“We welcome these talented, entrepreneurial companies into the BMW Financial Services Collaboration Lab program, said Ian Smith, CEO of BMW Group Financial Services USA and Region Americas. “As we work together over the next 10 weeks, we will explore new technologies and solutions for our business and our customers.”

For more content like this, check out the 18th annual Auto Finance Summit, which will take place on Oct. 24-26 at the Wynn Las Vegas. To learn more about this year’s event — or to register — visit the Summit’s homepage here.