Shutl, an on-demand delivery platform that aggregates transportation carriers to enable them to deliver in short time windows, has taken a £650,000 ($1m) investment round from Hummingbird Ventures and a European Postal Group of some description, but they are not saying which.
Shutl has recently been piloting its service with Argos, a leading multi-channel and high street retailer in the UK. Shutl plans to use the investment on building a sales team, expanding its platform and looking at international markets.
Barend Van Den Brande, Managing Partner of Hummingbird Ventures says Shutl has a “disruptive proposition.” An 90 minute delivery time is admittedly quite disruptive and numerous dotcom-boom era startups, like Kozmo and Urban Fetch, could not achieve this even with millions in VC backing.
Shutl was formed by Tom Allason, previously founder of eCourier.co.uk. Founded in late 2008, Shutl was initially bootstrapped by its founder with just £50,000, which was later matched by the rest of the team. It received £500,000 from a group of investors led by Simon Murdoch and Big Bang Ventures in October 2009 and £400,000 follow-on from these investors in August 2010.
Allason tells us sales have grown average 89% month on month in the first 12 months since first delivery (March ’10).