DriveTribe is an automotive online community platform founded by The Grand Tour presenters Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond. The platform features different automotive-themed 'tribes' which people can join, post to, live chat with members of and share content on. The idea of the platform is to have one site for all automotive enthusiasts to share their passions.
Tribes
Tribes are categorisations and themes, allowing users to find content most relevant to their area of interest. These range from Tribes dedicated to particular makes and models, to Tribes about road trips, engineering and even remote controlled cars. The website launched in November 2016, under Ernesto Schmitt, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May to much fanfare, with several selected tribe leaders to get things started. These early adopters started their tribes a week ahead of the full release to allow new fan made tribes to reach maturity before the masses are allowed entry. Each tribe has a specific theme and members join whichever tribe fits their personal tastes. Some Tribes are run by automotive celebrities such as Mark Webber, Damon Hill, and many others.
Leadership and investors
DriveTribe's current CEO is Jonathan Morris, known for his previous roles in fin-tech and with other start-ups. Serial tech entrepreneur Ernesto Schmitt is a Co-Founder and the former CEO of the platform. Financing for DriveTribe came from, among others, 21st Century Fox and Breyer Capital, who have invested respectively $6.5 and $5.5 million in the platform, as well as The Grand Tour producer Andy Wilman, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.
Commercialisation
In April 2018, DriveTribe announced its first commercial partnership, with German car manufacturer Audi. Giovanni Perosino, VP of marketing and communications at Audi, said the partnership signalled Audi's "dedication to deliver highly relevant content to our customers and brand audiences". In June 2018, DriveTribe launched a joint partnership with JOE Media and Renault, a six figure deal focusing on the launch of the Megane RS. Renault UK marketing director, Adam Wood, said the partnership would look to "engage a broader lifestyle market through original content production, influencer led activation and editorial support." In November 2018, the DriveTribe CEO, Jonathan Morris, described the four elements of the company's commercial model, which include content creation, distribution, and data insights. The latter of which is made possible because DriveTribe's tech stack is built on Apache Flink.
Data
In an article on LinkedIn, DriveTribe CSO, Richard Beech said that data captured by DriveTribe user engagement had allowed the company to connect car brands to "millennials who are affluent and open-minded when it comes to electric vehicles, or mums and dads that own SUVs, but that have limited knowledge about tyres".
