Honcho, the firm behind a new app designed to slash car insurance costs, is creating new jobs this year ahead of the product’s official launch.

Honcho has moved from Newcastle to set up offices in Durham in preparation for the market release of the app, which backers say will be the UK’s first “reverse auction” marketplace for car insurance, in a bid to reduce costs for motorists and decrease dependence on price comparison websites.

The app allows insurers to bid for consumers’ business, competing with each other to offer the best value package in real time. Insurers pay honcho £1 for the right to bid, enabling them to reduce premiums for consumers.

Now the tech start-up says it will recruit up to 15 new members of staff in the next 12 months.

Honcho has also recently enlisted a full-time CTO, having secured £830,000 of investment from a successful CrowdCube campaign in January.

Commercial director Frank Speight said honcho is on the hunt for staff including product development and distribution specialists and digital marketing experts.

Since January, honcho has been working on raising its profile as well overseeing the next phase of the development of its technology with the Newcastle based app developers, hedgehog lab.

The company believes that investing in homegrown talent and collaborating with North East based creative outlets will now be an integral part of the company’s short and long-term future.

Honcho is set to launch late 2018 and Frank Speight believes the first phase of its recruitment drive represents a major milestone for the rapidly-evolving tech outfit.

He said: “As a result of the PR exposure that came from the capital raising exercise, we were contacted by a number of insurers and brokers that we had yet to approach, all of whom we have now engaged with, who are keen to partner with honcho.