Earlier this month, Belgian ICMIF member the P&V Group announced it had become a shareholder alongside mobility provider D’Ieteren in the Belgian bicycle leasing scale up company Joule, for which it will also insure the bicycle fleets.
As a (bicycle) insurer, the P&V Group has long been committed to sustainable mobility. Earlier this year, the cooperative insurance company took part in the “Velo Veilig Vlaanderen” (Safe cycling in Flanders) campaign, identifying potentially dangerous places for cyclists. This summer, P&V has also been the main sponsor of another programme dedicated to cycling, Le Beau Vélo de Ravel. Today, the Group is a keen supporter of sustainable forms of travel between the home and workplace and therefore this new partnership with Joule is ideal.
The P&V Group will take a minority stake in Joule and will ensure the protection of the bicycles by insuring them (material damage, theft, assistance). When Joule rents out a bike, it is now directly insured by P&V.
Joule is a promising scale-up that works to make daily home-workplace travel more sustainable. It offers company bicycles and support for business travel through bicycle leasing or direct sales. This scale-up is active in B2B and the public sector. At the beginning of April 2022, Joule reached an important milestone thanks to a collaboration with D’Ieteren/Lab Box.
David Destappes, Non-Life Business Development Director of the P&V Group said: “The collaboration with Joule allows us to extend and diversify our offer to our partners and customers. B2B leasing is a complement to our bicycle ecosystem and underlines our desire to offer other services in addition to insurance and assistance. For the P&V Group, this investment represents a new step in its ambition to become the insurer of sustainable mobility and a confirmation of its long-term partnership with D’Ieteren.”
Maxime Seghin, CFO of Lab Box (D’Ieteren’s mobility start-up studio) said: “As the main shareholder, we welcome the P&V Group as an investor in Joule and as an insurer for its fleet of bicycles. D’Ieteren has been working with the P&V Group for a long time in different areas and we are happy to join forces on the sustainable mobility transition. Each with their own expertise.”
Nicolas Coudeville, co-founder of Joule: “We firmly believe in the added value of the P&V Group as an investor and partner, known to companies and institutions for its experience and professionalism. Insurance and assistance constitute an important part of our operational leasing offer and thanks to a solid partnership, we want to bet even more on commercial sense. With P&V, D’Ieteren and Lab Box, we are thus creating a valuable ecosystem thanks to which we want to become the benchmark in corporate mobility.”
