Set up a few years back, the BMW i Ventures division set out with one goal: to find all the best start-ups out there ancillary to the automotive industry and invest in them early on. Years rolled by and the venture already has a foothold in a variety of companies. The latest investment announcement came through the wire today, as BMW i Ventures officially confirmed investing in Tekion, a California-based technology provider that delivers the most modern cloud platform available for the automotive retail space.
Tekion is a cloud-built platform claiming advanced machine learning and AI capabilities, meant to enhance the consumer experience. The company has spent the last two years developing technology with the mission to simplify business applications for its users. Their digital Service Experience (dSE) platform is claimed to be the only end-to-end digital technology for both consumers and dealership personnel that connects the entire service experience from appointment scheduling to payment.
“Consumers are experiencing more advanced services and transactions outside the auto industry,” said Napoleon Rumteen, Senior Vice President of Sales and Business Development at Tekion. “Through dSE, consumers can look forward to Amazon-like machine learning capabilities, incredibly fast check-ins, real-time updates, a personalized interface, and easy online payment options. Concurrently, dealers will benefit with greater efficiency and profitability using our platform.”
“Tekion team has built a cutting-edge solution from ground up that seamlessly connects dealers, consumers and OEMs” said Dr. Ulrich Quay, Managing Director at BMW i Ventures. “We are convinced that Tekion will play a big part in the evolution of the dealer software industry, and we are thrilled to join the journey.” Other strategic investment firms such as Alliance Ventures, Storm Ventures, AME Ventures, Exor and Airbus Ventures are joining BMW i Ventures in supporting Tekion.
