Uber-like convenience to the shipping industry

See how this huge opportunity to add value to a key sector of the economy. Aim to fill the trucks so that carriers can operate up to 100% capacity. Right now, about 25% of European trucks drive nearly empty.

An app idea which connects carriers and shippers in real time. Book a shipment in just 3 clicks, while through the app you can track the position of your goods in real time, and receive immediate proof of delivery upon arrival.

A new startup from one of the founders of Rocket Internet’s beauty and wellness marketplace Vaniday is de-cloaking today. Convargo, launching in France, is the latest attempt to bring Uber-like convenience to the shipping industry, by connecting shippers with truckers.

The young company is also announcing that it’s raised €1.5 million from a very long list of investors. They include Xavier Niel (Free and Kima Ventures), Rocket Internet’s own Oliver Samwer, Jacques-Antoine Granjon (Vente Privée), Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet and Olivier Mathiot (PriceMinister), Jean-David Blanc (Allociné and Molotov), Marc Menacé (Menlook), Clément Benoit & Benjamin Chemla (Resto-In & Stuart), and Thibaud Lecuyer (Dafiti).

In addition, Convargo has perhaps smartly picked up support from a range of transportation industry folk, including Roger Crook (former CEO of DHL Global Freight Forwarding) and François Bourgeois (founder of French leading freight exchange Teleroute and 3617 LAMY).

Phew.

But back to what exactly the startup does. Operating a model that sounds similar to U.S.-based Trucker Path and Cargomatic, Convargo’s platform connects shippers with local carriers, including facilitating the booking process.

It claims to let you get a quote and book a shipment in just 3 clicks, while giving you access to thousands of local carriers. Through the app you can track the position of your goods in real time, and receive immediate proof of delivery upon arrival.

For the carriers themselves, the startup promises to send them more business and reduce overheads as it’s effectively a cheaper middle person, with lower overheads itself. The usual online marketplace play, you might surmise. Interestingly, I’m told that 90 per cent of carriers in Europe have fewer than six trucks, so it’s a highly fragmented industry.

Maxime Legardez, co-founder of Convargo says, “with scale, and using an algorithm, we aim to fill the trucks so that carriers can operate up to 100 per cent capacity. Right now, about 25 per cent of European trucks drive nearly empty. It’s an evidence of the enormous amount of blatant inefficiency in this industry, which has direct collateral impact such as excessive exhaust emissions.”

Asked why he quit Vaniday, Legardez told me he started thinking about Convargo at the end of last year and that after dozens of meetings with key people from the industry he became convinced “this was simply an opportunity I would never see again and a huge opportunity to add value to a key sector of the economy”. Now, along with a number of other freight marketplace startups, he’s attempting to make that opportunity count.

Currently Netherland based, compare quotes for car damage repair, a new business model by Fixico, which has generated half lac orders through the photo-to-quote platform.

It works like this: you make yourself three pictures of your damage, put them in the app, and they are then sent to the repair shops affiliated with Fixico.

Dutch startup Fixico is using the smartphone’s ubiquity to power a platform that connects car owners whose car has suffered cosmetic damage to bodywork repair shops that can polish out the scratches or hammer out the dent and return their pride and joy to its former glory.

The startup, which currently only operates in the Netherlands — officially launching its platform in April 2014 after a pilot in Amsterdam the year before — says it has generated more than 50,000 orders at a body repair shop thus far via its photo-to-quote platform.

Users of its platform take three photos of cosmetic damage to their car, uploading the pictures to Fixico’s platform where the images are then manually reviewed by its staff so that repair requests which lack enough detail can be filtered out at this stage — to ensure only “relevant leads” are delivered to the body shops.

Fixico says it vets the repair shops on the platform and requires they send a quote for repair within 24 hours of receiving photos. They are also required to give a fixed price guarantee based on the original quote so they can’t increase the charge after the fact, once a customer books the repair with their shop.

“Because it’s only cosmetic damage, photo’s work well enough. Scratches and dents are easily recognizable. Fixico monitors the request process, if a request doesn’t receive quotes, they’ll ask for improved images. Thanks to this quality control, they filter out 15 per cent of the requests as invalid,” it says.

If there’s additional mechanical damage above and beyond anything cosmetic that would obviously not be covered by the quote. But, on the flip side, if the body shop’s quote for the cosmetic repair is too low and it ends up costing them more than they thought to fix they have to take the loss.

Fixico notes there’s a bidding process for repair shops to bid on requests, so they are able to choose which jobs to chase. “If it’s not so busy, you can give a great quote and schedule it a slow moment, or offer extra’s such as transport,” it adds.

On the user side, car owners can select a repair service provider based on criteria such as price, service level and ratings from other users of the platform. Fixico claims users see savings of 30 per cent on average, given the increased transparency being generated by the platform.

Does manual vetting of photos scale? Fixico says its human-eye powered review process is “very fast” — taking one of its damage experts “ten seconds or less” to check each image. So it claims one of its reviewers could “easily” moderate 200 to 300 requests per day.

That said, it says it is also looking to implement photo recognition software, via a partner, to further speed things up as it seeks to expand into new markets.

It could also, in future, use the large database of damage images amassed to train AI software to help with the review task down the line, it adds.

The startup has just closed a €2 million funding round led by UK-Dutch tech fund Orange Growth Capital, with participation from prior investors and shareholders — adding to the €600,000 it had previously raised from angel investors. It describes the new round as “technically” a Series A but notes it never raised a full blown seed round — so it’s more like half and a half.

“In the Netherlands funding usually works differently. The first rounds are usually angel only, up until pre-seed. Even the seed round sometimes is done only with angels, as it’s very difficult to bridge the gap between angel and seed, and seed and Series A,” it adds. “This is… the case in many countries besides the UK, France, and Germany, where it’s hard to raise capital.”

Fixico says it grew 450 percent last year and is prepping its international expansion plans — intending to announce new markets after the summer, with Germany one possible option.

Market expansion is partly where the new funding is aimed, along with developing a white label b2b offering to target the fleet and insurance market. Accelerating consumer growth in the Netherlands is another priority. It is also looking to roll out online payments with credit cards and PayPal as it expands into more markets (something it says is not currently feasible in the Netherlands owing to debit card usage dominating that market).

In terms of business model, users do not pay to use the platform but pay at the body shop after the repair work is done, with Fixico invoicing the bodyshops on its platform on a monthly basis — taking a commission percentage of each total order amount (plus a one-off sign up fee from each repair shop).

News information courtesy of Techcrunch.

Mobile analytics firm headquartered in San Francisco and Beijing App Annie has announced that it acquired competitor Distimo. The sum for the take-over is not disclosed yet. It has been known that Distimo’s founders would be taking key roles within the App Annie team. On the other hand, Distimo’s Netherlands headquarters will become R&D center for App Annie. The Distimo team will be integrated into the App Annie team, bringing the App Annie employee count to 240 employees worldwide.

Bertrand Schmitt, CEO of App Annie said, “We started this company during the app ecosystem’s infancy and our mission has always been to provide our users and customers with the best metrics and insights to run their app business.”

Vincent Hoogsteder, CEO of Distimo, added, “It made complete sense for us to join the team at App Annie. We share the same vision to inform everyone in the app industry with the best data and analytics platform, and we’re excited about what we can achieve together and the road ahead.” Continue reading →