Like all good ideas, the one for Bumper came to co-founder James Jackson to solve a specific need he had – namely how to avoid the punch of unexpected repair bills for his old Volkswagen Polo.
Now the British company, which was set up in 2013 as Auto Service Finance, is flush from a $12 million (£8.8m) investment round in which both the venture capital arms of Jaguar Land Rover and Porsche sunk significant amounts, giving them a “meaningful percentage” in the company, according to co-founder Jack Allman.
For Autocar Business webinars and podcasts, visit Autocar Business Insight
Bumper's buy-now, pay-later product works like this. The car owner is given the option of paying in installments for repair work offered by garages and service centres that have signed up with the firm.
The payments can be spread any way the owner wants (within certain boundaries) and there’s no interest to pay. Instead, Bumper makes money from the service centre, which pays it per customer.
Service centres get on board because they stand to win more business after the initial investigation into the fault, says Allman. The technician might identify a number of faults, but the cost might be prohibitive in a single chunk.
“Only about 40% of the work gets authorised," he said. "There’s a variety of reasons why the 60% doesn’t, but the majority revolves around price and affordability. It means the garage or dealer is missing out on revenue opportunities.”
The set-up is analogous to that offered by Klarna, but Allman reckons Bumper’s advantage is their specialist knowledge.
“The difference is Klarna is a jack of all trades, whereas we recognise automotive is entirely different for services and repair,” he said.
For example, Bumper also includes the flexibility to increase the amount should the bill go up if the dealer finds subsequent problems not identified in the initial inspection – something Allman reckons Klarna would struggle with.
The investment from Jaguar Land Rover's venture capital arm, InMotion, came about following the manufacturer's experience working with Bumper within its UK dealerships from 2020. It was “impressed by their market leading product,” InMotion said.
The $12m investment round was led by San Francisco-based Autotech Ventures, an automotive-based venture capital firm that has invested in start-ups such as ride-share company Lyft and web-based used-car retailer Cazoo.
Allman says its work with Volkswagen Group dealers in the UK turned the head of Porsche Ventures, bringing them on board. The investment will allow the company to double its 40-odd employees, both here in the UK and in Turkey, where it bases its tech centre for developing online technology.
Join the debate
Add your comment
I also want to add that there are a lot of cars that have been damaged and when people see a check with four 0 or even more they forget about them and they are just lying on our earth with nothing to do. After I started to think of how they can do it I got into a similar situation and I solved it by one service and got some money from them and asked my parents to help me and I fixed my new Porsche and I am able right now to drive it.
Reads like an advert.
Story makes it clear the customer pays no interest. Unlike if you buy a new car on finance (which most of the UK does)