The UK’s Buy Now Pay Later for car repairs, Bumper drives home with $12 million

If you’re a car owner, or ever have been one in the past, that with that freedom to take to the open road at any given moment comes a number of responsibilities, most of which have a price tag attached to them. And this is just the day-to-day business. Now when the unforeseeable, yet somehow inevitable, happens, i.e. a repair, the associated cost can at times break the bank.

Recognising this dilemma the every car owner must eventually face, the UK’s Bumper founders Jack Allman and James Jackson set out to help both motorists and mechanics by providing a means to spread the cost of said repairs out across a much more manageable timeframe. Essentially, Bumper was applying a Buy Now Pay Later mechanism before BNPL became a zeitgeist.

Already taking pole position in the BNPL for car repairs sector in the UK and Ireland, Bumper has raised $12 million in a Series A round and plans to enter the German, Spanish, and Dutch markets in Q1 of next year, with further ambitions to have a presence in every major European market by years’ end 2022.

If a continental European rollout weren’t enough in the drivers’ seat, Bumper’s also been quietly building a consumer app that will roll out in the UK in January. The service will act as a one-stop-shop for all things car-related including congestion charges payments, parking and tolls, and the approval of repair works.

From the consumer perspective, Bumper’s offer is rather simple, spread the cost of car repairs out over time, bish, bash, bosh, done. However, the consumer isn’t where Bumper’s story ends. With deals in place with a number of the world’s leading OEMs including Volkswagen Group, Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, and Nissan, and approximately 60% of the franchised UK dealer market, buy guaranteeing payments upfront, Bumper’s offer increases repair conversion rates, removes the awkward haggling and discounting process, and ultimately keeps the loses for the retailer at a minimum and the satisfaction for the customer at a maximum.

Now that’s not to say that Bumper is just handing out cash to just anyone, as the service aggregates thousands of vehicle and consumer finance data, ensuring (to the best of their ability) that both dealerships and consumers are protected from defaulting on loans. As part of this aggregation process, Bumper is using a proprietary AI-powered algorithm that taps into dealerships’ APIs to quickly source customer information. Through this process, Bumper is not only sourcing the highest accuracy of data possible but also cutting out the time-consuming and often tedious task of applying for a car repair loan.

“The current process for handling car repairs is broken on both sides, with dealerships selling just 40% of identified repairs and drivers left out of pocket and with dangerous vehicles,” explained Bumper CEO James Jackson. “Bumper offers a simple alternative to unexpected car repairs. It’s a very different proposition to other Buy Now Pay Later services, as we’re not encouraging people to buy things they don’t need, we’re enabling them to purchase necessary repairs at an affordable rate.”

Bumper’s $12 million Series A round was led by Autotech Ventures, with participation from Jaguar Land Rover’s fund InMotion Ventures, and a group of undisclosed angel investors.