Halfords Group plc said Bridgestone acquired a 5% stake in its automotive Software as a Service (SaaS) business, Avayler, valuing the business that was launched in July 2021, at over $60 million. In addition, the commercial agreement will allow Bridgestone to leverage Avayler’s products in retail stores and mobile applications, Halfords Group said.

The Avayler SaaS solution was developed in-house by Halfords to manage automotive services across its garage network and increasing number of mobile vans. The Avayler platform has no direct equivalent on the market today, Halfords said. As well as streamlining customer bookings – online, over the phone, and in-store – and job execution inside the garage, its mobile capability uses algorithms to instantly calculate the available customer time slots according to the nearest van location and parts availability.

The Avayler platform uses dynamic pricing to value those slots accurately. Automotive service providers can calculate the cheapest and quickest routes to a customer; maximize colleague productivity on the job; give details of traffic on the road; and provide a colleague with detailed checklists to ensure a safe and consistent service is provided. Customers can even track the location and ETA of their service delivery.

Bridgestone said this investment in Avayler comes after a period of rapid growth. Its first customer was American Tire Distributors and since then, Avayler has won “a number of significant contracts with operators around the globe,” including Tirebuyer in the U.S. and Mobivia in Central Europe.