Behind Our Fourth Investment: Why Bringly?

Our first investment of 2020 is now official! In this short piece, we’ll share why we’re so excited to partner up with Rajiv, Anton & the rest of the Bringly team. Before we deep-dive into our reasoning, a short recap on the hottest last-mile delivery startup in the Netherlands:

• Bringly is a sustainable same-day delivery platform. They offer a ship-from-store solution using existing last-mile couriers by partnering with sustainable delivery companies (i.e. bikes and electric vehicles)
• Bringly’s software allows retailers with physical stores to offer same-day delivery to their customers. Their algorithm subsequently assigns the deliveries to one of its partners such as Cycloon, DHL and Fietskoerier.nl via their APIs.
• Bringly then charges a fee in each additional delivery they are able to assign to their partners.

The Key to a Successful Startup: the Team

If you’re into venture capital and entrepreneurship, you’ve probably heard the ever present mantra : “Invest in top-notch teams!” But how do you assess this? Normally, you’d look for previous experience and exposure to the industry the company is looking to disrupt, but given that we invest in students and recent graduates, we don’t have this luxury. Nonetheless, young entrepreneurs offer something completely different: grit, passion and perseverance in solving the problem they set out to address. Still too abstract? Let’s dive into our reasoning.

Rajiv and Anton are young, motivated, and qualified. Rajiv (CEO) previously worked on a similar same-day-delivery solution for Suit Supply’s US stores. Anton (CTO) has vast experience in software development and is the architect of Bringly’s complex back-end technology. Their respective strengths and expertise make them a perfect co-founder duo to execute on such an innovative concept.

More importantly however, Bringly’s team is one of the hungriest, dedicated and driven we have encountered in our year thus far. Rajiv actually took the stage at one of our P!TCH editions back in 2019, where he gained valuable and insightful feedback to improve his business strategy from the likes of Slingshot Ventures. Consequently, the team was able to devise a winning strategy to penetrate the market by offering a unique product to merchants and tailoring to growing consumer needs for convenience, efficiency and sustainability. The ability to showcase their idea, critically listening to valuable feedback from experts and adapting these learnings to their business is what convinced us of Rajiv and Anton’s ability to deliver in such a growing yet competitive market.

Lastly, the story behind Bringly’s formation is the cherry on top of the chocolate sundae that is the team: Anton and Rajiv met on cofounderslab.com (i.e. the tinder for driven and innovative entrepreneurs) and have worked tirelessly together ever since. They shared the common vision of playing in the big last-mile delivery market that we witness today, with a creative, efficient and sustainable solution and they have been delivering on that vision ever since. We are extremely confident in Bringly’s team to scale their operations, onboard new partners and grow their team with our investment. Onwards and upwards!

A New Market

We’ve all had our favourite meals and products delivered by Thuisbezorgd/UberEats and Bol.com/Amazon. Last-mile delivery is definitely not a new kid on the block. Let’s dive into some figures to get a better understanding: the global parcel delivery market experienced a 17% Year over Year (YoY) growth in 2018, reaching US$320 billion. Now what does this number mean exactly? Essentially, it identifies a massive market opportunity. Of course, no company can realistically target the entire market (right, Mr. Bezos?). Nevertheless, it showcases the opportunity for a startup who wants to enter this growing lucrative industry. That being said, as consumers, we are all aware of the big and dominant players within the parcel delivery market and let me assure you, there are plenty of other players that are not consumer facing that steer industry dynamics.

So why would a group of young, talented and motivated founders try to enter a market that is already mature and dominated by important players? Well, the key is that they are unlocking the access to a new market. If you recall from our various press releases, Bringly is essentially a space-optimization tool for connecting couriers and merchants. With their software, they are allowing stores to send previously unsold/unshipped items to customers while maximizing “occupancy rates” for parcel delivery companies. This unlocks previously unreachable demand, thereby creating a new market, that of “same-day-store-deliveries” which is adjacent to the already established yet growing parcel delivery market. By targeting a different set of customers and merchants, Bringly is not directly competing with other courier services, but actually partners up with them!

All in all, early stage investors like us, seek to support talented entrepreneurs who target BIG market opportunities. Having assessed how Bringly is actually disrupting and innovating an already existing enormous market (even at the local level), we are excited to see how Rajiv and Anton will establish themselves and Bringly as key players in the ecosystem.

A Sustainable Alternative

Whether from discussions with friends, colleagues or from Greta Thurnberg on TV, questions of sustainability have risen to a position of inherent importance in our lives. How can we reduce the environmental impact of all our actions? As young investors, we have a responsibility to support ventures with a sustainable mission. As we invest in the next wave of innovation, we are constantly exposed to various creative and environmentally friendly solutions! We strongly believe that product and service offerings going forward will increasingly address societal needs in the most effective and efficient way: that is, sustainably! We believe in entrepreneurship as a vehicle for social innovation. Our portfolio conveys that ASIF’s investments make the environment, and society as a whole the primary net beneficiary.

With consumer/business trends shifting from cost to value-driven decision making strategies (i.e. socio and environmentally friendly), we have witnessed an incredible rise in sustainable alternatives to traditional activities. This is not only driven by the fact that being “green” is better, but it is the ultimate, sustainable and efficient solution for long term business success. Bringly’s team identified this early on: by partnering up solely with eco-friendly couriers and shifting the value chain origination from the warehouse (usually situated in the outskirts) to inner cities’ stores, they’re able to significantly reduce environmental impact whilst improving operational efficiency for merchants/couriers and offering an increasingly convenient alternative to shoppers. By pioneering the sustainable shift in the delivery market, Bringly is setting itself up as a clear market disruptor and forcing incumbents to change their operational focus, positively impacting society as a whole. Rajiv and Anton ultimately find themselves riding a growing consumer and business trend in which their solution is perfectly tailored to the needs of all stakeholders; another key reason that prompted us to partner up with them.

To conclude

Since first hearing Rajiv at P!TCH, to singing the term sheet, a lot has changed apart from our unwavering confidence in the team of Bringly. As we began our deep dive into the company, we were further emboldened by Bringly’s mission of disrupting and innovating an already existing enormous market. Finally, we understood the imperative overlap of Bringly’s internal thesis with ours: providing a disruptive product in a socially conscious and environmentally friendly way. Bringly is at the beginning of their journey and we could not be more excited to partner up for the ride!

We are hiring 5 new people for our board. Go to asif.ventures/were-hiring for more information.

Have a startup and want to grow? Shoot an email to sid@asif.ventures. We are always looking for the next best startup to invest in. All startups are welcome.