BMW Financial Taps 6 Startups For ‘Collaboration Lab’
autofinancenews | September 13, 2018
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.