KENT, Wash. (BRAIN) — Accell North America has acquired Beeline Bikes, the mobile service franchiser. ANA has been an investor in the company for several years.
"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," Pete Buhl, the co-founder and CEO of Beeline Bikes, said in a statement. "ANA has the same vision and can invest to further it. I couldn't be more excited about our future."
ANA said it will be focused on growing the Beeline Bikes footprint in North America.
"ANA is 100 percent focused on empowering IBDs to remarkably serve cyclists the way they research and buy today — across multiple channels," said John Short, the 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."
ANA is the North American parent company of the Diamondback, Haibike, iZip, Raleigh and Redline bicycle brands.
"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."
Under the new ownership, Beeline franchisees will have direct access to the brands and resources of ANA, the company said.
"To win locally in the North American market our strategy will focus on the needs and wishes of consumers and a true omnichannel approach, said Ton Anbeek, the CEO of Accell Group, the parent company of ANA. "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."
