He only had a short stint in the banking sector, at Danske Bank, but Jesper Hill-Kjærsgaard then spent almost 20 years in the world of automotive finance--13 years at Nordania Leasing and three and a half at Rent A Car. Since the summer of 2020, Hill-Kjærsgaard has been tackling the leasing market with an idea: what if, instead of buying a leased car, we leased a car? And what if, instead of getting bogged down in administration, we took advantage of technology to radically simplify processes?
As is so often the case, it’s here, in the desire to keep things simple, that the energy-intensive difficulty lies. “:Dribe”, a spin-off from the Semler group, which sells one in four cars in Denmark, wants to bring a breath of fresh air to the grand duchy market. On Tuesday 2 April, the Danish startup announced that it was actively looking to partner with a car dealer in Luxembourg.
How does :Dribe work? The company ‘sets up’ a corner in a car dealership, a :Dribe zone, where business customers can choose a car and take possession of the vehicle--which is insured--for one month, and must comply with a certain number of conditions about the state of the vehicle and with maintenance messages. At the end of the month, they can keep the car for another month, or return it and/or take another one. “All they have to worry about is fuel”, according to the company. There are no terms that lock in a user with a vehicle for four or five years, when their company’s leasing policy has changed in the meantime, for example.
First expansion in Greece
“We have developed a plug-and-play model that enables a vast fleet of vehicles to be managed efficiently, while facilitating a subscription business with a minimum of manual intervention and optimum use of resources”, explained :Dribe CEO Jesper Hill-Kjærsgaard. The company, which has just signed its first international customer, in Greece, with Kosmocar, enables dealers to add a range of services to their end customers.
“The business model is quite simple,” he told Paperjam, Delano’s sister publication. “:Dribe operates on a subscription-based business model, offering customers an alternative to ownership. We--or a finance company--own all the vehicles. The main source of revenue comes from the monthly subscription fees paid by customers. In addition, we generate income from add-on modules. Our efficient IT platform significantly reduces manual handling, effectively optimising our resources.”
As of Tuesday, the Danish company was offering nine models--Skoda Kodiaq, Audi T3, VW T-Roc, Audi A6 Avant, Skoda Octavia Combi, VW Passat--on its website, but could potentially add others to its range.
The Semler group began selling tyres in 1917, then Volkswagen vehicles in 1948, followed by Porsche, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bentley, Lamborghini and finally Ducati. With a turnover of €2.5bn in 2022, the company had 2,800 staff and sold 43,000 cars that year.
Originally published in French by and translated for Delano