Belron announce investment in third startup from Drive II

Further to its announcement in July, Belron has announced it will be also be investing in Blitzz. Blitzz offers a video engagement platform enabling collaboration and personalised customer support. Blitzz join Locpin and ThriveMap who have already received investment as part of this year’s Drive with Belron accelerator programme.

Drive is the startup accelerator from Belron, parent company of Autoglass®, in partnership with innovation specialists L Marks designed to fast track disruptive young businesses looking for global expansion.

In this second year of the accelerator programme, five tech startups – Blitzz, Locpin, Talking Circles, ThriveMap and ThanksBox – spent 10 weeks working with Belron countries; immersing themselves in Belron business operations and trialling their products. Blitzz was partnered with Safelite® in the US.

On 26 June, each team presented their experiences and proposal for a future relationship with Belron during an exciting Demo Day. This latest investment from Belron brings the total startup funding to £278,340 with £175,000 from Belron and £103,340 from innovation partner, L Marks.

In addition to Blitzz, ThriveMap and Locpin have also received financial support and contracts with Belron.

ThriveMap – who have a platform that measures how people like to work in order to predict team fit and improve team harmony. ThriveMap have received £75,000 of investment from Belron and £53,340 from L Marks.

Locpin – who provide a smart addressing solution which provides all the information necessary to ensure you can quickly and efficiently find the right location, first time, every time. Locpin received £50,000 of investment from Belron and £50,000 from L Marks.

Talking Circles continue their pilot with Belron, on a commercial basis.

Nick Burton, Chief Information and Digital Officer of Belron, said: “I’m delighted to announce that we have now invested in three of the five or our startups and pilots and conversations continue with the other two. This has been a really successful year for Drive with Belron and I look forward to working with the teams and their platforms to really make a difference to our people and customers.”

The key focus for Drive with Belron 2017 was to collaborate with disruptive startups who can effectively improve operations of the leading vehicle glass repair and replacement company. In return, startups were given the opportunity to trial their products with a global organisation. In addition to the startups securing funding and/or paid continuation of their pilots, all five on the accelerator programme developed their business more rapidly than they would have done by operating on their own.