BMW has announced five new technology start-ups for the BMW Innovation Lab.

The businesses will spend 10 weeks at the Lab to develop their applications, before pitching to senior BMW executives on March 22 2018.

Successful start-ups will then be able to secure ongoing relationships with the automotive firm’s UK commercial divisions.

Mike Dennett, CEO at BMW Group Financial Services and one of the architects of the BMW Innovation Lab, said: “The auto industry will see more change in the next 20 years than it has seen in the past century. We need to act now and go beyond the vehicle to ensure we deliver the best services for customers now and in the future.

The BMW Innovation Lab engages with technology start-ups to develop specific solutions around BMW Group UK’s three commercial divisions: BMW Group UK, BMW Financial Services UK and fleet manager Alphabet.

Four out of five start-ups were onboarded into BMW Group UK’s commercial divisions in 2017. The cohort included cloud-based loan servicing platform Divido, which is now being rolled out across BMW UK’s entire network of 150 retailers.

The five successful start-ups selected for the BMW Innovation Lab 2018 are:

• Proximo.io – a location data platform that provides better engagement and marketing opportunities to their customers through geo-targeting
• Ocasta – a digital service studio, creators of the Oplift product suite for employee engagement, learning and operations
• Overfit Technologies – an employee retention and analytics platform which uses data mapping to help businesses make the most out of data
• easyCar Club – peer-to-peer car and van hire service with more than 10,000 members, it allows vehicle owners to earn money from their car or van when they are not using it
• DOVU – using blockchain technology, DOVU offers DOV tokens that users can earn and spend by sharing and changing the way they travel

The selected start-ups will now be mentored by BMW Group’s UK leadership team and will be provided with business education programmes, links to industry experts, and access to investors alongside fundraising support.