As you might have heard already. Quiqup raised last week £20 million in a Series B round! With this push, we’re not only looking to improve our kick ass tech to make our delivery operations even smoother, but to charge out of London to other UK cities and reach beyond the seas to countries still deprived of the instant gratification that Quiqup can provide — for consumers and retailers alike. Speaking to Bassel El Koussa, Quiqup’s CEO and co-founder, he is ecstatic about where this will take Quiqup next:
“Time is a precious commodity for today’s consumer and Quiqup was created to help people make more time for what they enjoy most, and to help businesses leverage their existing network in faster, better and more efficient ways. This funding gives us the ability to grow this vision and take it to where it needs to be.”
It’s been just under three years since the birth of Quiqup, and from the humble beginnings of five guys working out of a living room, we are now a team of over 110 — and boasting more than 2000 Quiqees on-boarded since founding.
We can throw more stats at you about how we’ve grown 170 percent year on year, or that we’ve fulfilled over 550,000 orders since launch — but you can read about that on TechCrunch or Business Insider — what we really want to talk about is our mission, and how excited we are about where this funding will take us in the coming months.
“The problem is, we’re living in a world where retailers need to adopt and think about their physical existence in a different way — you can’t have a physical business without representation online. And Quiqup can do that by providing an infrastructure to power these businesses and create a more compelling logistics solution.”
Our vision isn’t only to make life easier for those busy bodies short on time, but also to transform the face of enterprise as you see it today. We believe that last-mile, on-demand logistics doesn’t need to be restricted to any particular retail vertical, a business of a particular size or even a specific kind of crowd. Because in today’s world, whether you’re an individual looking to have your goods delivered to your door, an independent business in need of a logistics platform, or an e-commerce enterprise looking to gear up to tackle the on-demand economy — everybody is short of time.
With this new round of funding, we can continue our mission to “augment cities with our layer of intelligent technology driven infrastructure”. By investing in tech and data teams, we’ll be better able to anticipate demand patterns and delivery estimates. We don’t just want to change how goods are sent and received, we want to transform how a city is organised; turning brick and mortar stores into warehouses of delivery hubs, and make instant gratification available to everyone.
We’re going to be investing in our teams, mainly. A big part of the budget is growing the Quiqup family, and expanding our geographic presence.”
Though we don’t discriminate based on size, we really care about helping small and medium sized businesses compete in the e-commerce world. We want to connect consumers with the goods provided by their local businesses, and help SMEs tap into new markets they haven’t been able to reach before. As Bassel described for TechCrunch:
“As consumers expectations change, retailers of all sizes and verticals will be expected to offer flexible, efficient and affordable delivery services.”
That’s why, on top of our consumer facing mobile and web app that connect busy people across London with the goods they want, we offer smaller retailers Quiqdash, a web app that allows them to tap into our logistics capabilities, as well as an API integration service that incorporates Quiqup’s on-demand delivery service to existing e-commerce retailers.
And last but not least, a big shoutout to JOBI Capital and Transmed, who led the investment round and have jumped onboard with our journey, and of course a big thank you to our existing investors for their continued support.
Got any questions? Feel free to shoot over an email.
Tim, Business Content Writer
