Accell North America (ANA) announced the acquisition of Beeline Bikes, a pioneering mobile channel expansion solution that delivers bicycle sales and service on-demand and on-locations. Born in Silicon Valley, Beeline delivers an unmatcahed consumer experience through its mobile bike shop platform and integrations from online purchase to the home delivery of ready-to-ride bikes.
Up to this point, Beeline’s business has been based on selling city-based franchises to local independent bicycle dealers or bike industry insiders.
“We launched Beeline five years ago to address the huge opportunity in the market to provide a friendly, professional and convenient service experience to all types of cyclists,” said Pete Buhl, co-founder and CEO of Beeline Bikes. “ANA has the same vision and can invest to further it. I couldn’t be more excited about our future.”
ANA will be focused on rapidly growing the Beeline Bikes footprint in North America, which will support existing and future franchise partners as they seek to build dominant businesses in their respective markets. ANA is the North American parent company of Diamondback, Haibike, iZip, Raleigh, and Redline bicycle brands. Going forward, Beeline franchisees will have direct access to the brands and resources of ANA as it grows its franchise network, enabling ongoing, increased revenue streams and fulfillment opportunities.
“ANA is 100% focused on empowering IBD’s to remarkably serve cyclists the way they research and buy today – across multiple channels,” said John Short, CEO of ANA. “The acquisition of Beeline Bikes enables us to offer expansion to our IBD partners; it brings convenience, high-touch service, and an experiential and data-driven solution that rapidly expands our consumer reach while bolstering value to our growing franchise and IBD network.”
“Our objective is to cover all the major metro markets in the U.S. and Canada,” said Larry Pizzi, VP of North America Sales for ANA. “We have a tremendous group of IBD affiliate and independent franchisees in the Beeline network already and we look forward to supporting the success of our franchisees with new revenue streams and innovative customer acquisition tools.”
“To win locally in the North American market our strategy will focus on the needs and wishes of consumers and a true omni-channel approach, said Ton Anbeek, CEO of Accell Group. “We have been partnering with Beeline Bikes for quite a while and have found that the Beeline mobile model and technology platform offer highly attractive synergies with the traditional brick and mortar channels – this acquisition is a clear case of 1+1=3.”
