The last time Tyres & Accessories interviewed online tyre entrepreneur, Mike Welch, his latest venture Tirescanner was making in-roads in the US tyre retail market. Such was the concept’s growth that Welch had been pitching the business to investors in a bid to move onto phase two of Tirescanner’s development. Roughly a year later, T&A asked how things are progressing:
In addition to reporting strong first quarter 2020 sales growth, Tirescanner reports that it has added more locations, and has added three new senior figures to its ranks. Graeme Bissett, previously chairman at TireScanner founder Mike Welch’s previous tyre business Blackcircles.com for 12 years, will advise the board on governance, finance and strategic matters.
Tirescanner, the US-based tyre e-commerce, has announced sales and customer growth of 400 per cent in the quarter covering January, February and March 2020. April and May have continued the same trend with the company predicting another record quarter.
Less than a year after Tirescanner.com was founded, at the start of November, the business reported that it is live in Florida. This means Tirescanner already covers 1200 postcodes codes, matching consumers with products from a range of hundreds of thousands of tyres and – crucially – connecting them with “the best local retailers”. At the moment this works on a next day install, but the plan is to take this to a same-day level. And more states are said to be coming fast. We’re used to pretty rapid progress when it comes to dotcom start-ups, but such fast growth is more understandable when you consider that Tirescanner is driven by Blackcircles.com founder Mike Welch. Tyres & Accessories recently caught up with Welch in order to find out how the company plans to continue and sustain this growth.
The Tire Industry Association (TIA), which lobbies for tyre safety in the USA, has announced the nominations for the 2019 Board of Directors. Four individuals will be elected to serve on the TIA Board for a three-year term. The voting period will end on Sunday 1 September 2019.
Tirescanner.com has appointed former Jack Williams director of marketing, Scott Friedman as VP of sales. The US online tyre sales portal’s president, and founder of Blackcircles.com in the UK, Mike Welch said: “I am delighted to be able to welcome Scott into the Tirescanner family. It is really important to me that we appoint the very best talent from the tyre industry.”
Mike Welch, the founder of Blackcircles.com has founded Tirescanner.com, a new online portal designed for North American tyre retailers. Initially investing more than $1million in the venture, Welch claims it will be “North America’s first online portal for brick and mortar tyre retailers.” Welch sold UK “click and fit” tyre retailer, Blackcircles to Michelin three years ago, and will bring his online experience to the world’s largest tyre retail market in the US, where replacement tyre sales reached $39.6 billion in 2017. Earlier in 2018, Welch became strategic adviser and shareholder of Indian e-commerce venture Tyremarket.com, while he joined the board of US player Simpletire.com in 2017, prior to US distributor Dealer Tires, itself currently in the process of being acquired by Bain Capital, making an investment in the company this year.
Full Circle Partners, the investment advisory firm co-founded by Blackcircles.com founder Mike Welch has launched a new property fund. FCP Property Development Fund will provide loans ranging from £250,000 to £2.5 million. It has reportedly already invested approximately £6 million and could raise that to £20 million in the next year or so.
Blackcircles.com CEO Mike Welch left the employment of the company he founded in August 2017. Since then he has joined the board of SimpleTire.com, a fast-growing, US-based online tyre business. Meanwhile he also remains a consultant to blackcircles.com. Tyres & Accessories recently caught up with the well-known tyre entrepreneur to find out more about his latest venture.
SimpleTire.com is the brainchild of brothers Andy and Josh Chalofsky. Andy has been in the tyre business since he was a teenager and started out in the warehouse of his family’s brick and mortar tyre business. From here he worked his way up and took over a subsidiary tyre business after graduating college. In 2012, he started building the foundations of what is now SimpleTire.
Mike Welch, the founder of UK online tyre retail website Blackcircles.com, has been appointed to the board of US online tyre retailer SimpleTire. Welch has taken up the position of strategic advisor for the company, which sources inventory from independent suppliers and ships to the customer’s chosen location.
Mike Welch’s global aspirations for Blackcircles.com pre-date the Scottish company’s acquisition by Michelin, however the tyre maker has provided a platform for expansion, and over the coming year Blackcircles will work towards establishing a presence on the other side of the world. Speaking with The Scotsman, the founder and chief executive officer shared that consumers in Asia Pacific will soon get to know the Blackcircles way of buying tyres.
Edinburgh Napier University has made Blackcircles founder Mike Welch an honorary doctor of enterprise at a ceremony held in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall on 7 July.
Mike Welch, the founder and CEO of Blackcircles.com and long-time supporter of adoption and fostering charities in Scotland and the UK is to receive the OBE.
Named in the Queen’s new year’s honours list, which was published on 30 December, Welch has been given the OBE for ”services to business and voluntary service to adoption and fostering”.
With Michelin buying a stake in Allopneus as well as the complete Blackcircles business in the Spring; and with Apollo purchasing Reifen.com in November, it is fair to say we witnessed a trend towards manufacturer investment in online tyre businesses this year. Dig a little deeper and we are beginning to learn more about how tyre manufacturers are approaching this unavoidably important strategic area. With 2015 being something of a landmark year in this respect, Tyres & Accessories met with Blackcircles founder and managing director Mike Welch in Edinburgh to find out more.
Michelin chief operating officer, Florent Menegaux told Tyres & Accessories that the manufacturer would promote synergies with ATS Euromaster following its acquisition of Blackcircles.com. Speaking to Tyrepress following the announcement of its £50 million purchase, Michelin’s chief operating officer said that the UK’s biggest online tyre retail operation would gain “access to ATS Euromaster branches in the UK”, which numbered 343 in the recent T&A survey of the retail landscape.
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