Why we invested in The Colvin Co.đ»
By Siddharth Choksi, Analyst at Samaipata Ventures.
Samaipata Venturesâ is a VC focused on seed-stage marketplaces and DNVBâs across Southern Europe. If you donât want to miss out our news and posts, follow us here on Medium, Twitter or subscribe to our newsletter. Weâre delighted to share with you why we invested in The Colvin Co.
WHAT DO THEY DO?
The Colvin Co. is a cut-to-order flower delivery service based in Barcelona. The startup is seeking to change the way people purchase flowers online by providing its customers with an intermediary-free product with quality assurance and a competitive price.
Flowers are a notoriously expensive product, and unfortunately the quality of each bouquet upon delivery tends to vary significantly. This is a pain that the guys at Colvin Co. recognised immediately and have invested all their resources into fixing; theyâre offering beautifully designed, premium quality flowers for around 25 euros per bouquet with free delivery and 100% assurance on freshness!
WHY DID WE INVEST IN THEM?
TEAM, TEAM, TEAM đšâđ©âđ§âđŠ
Andrés, Marc, and Sergi met each other at their alma mater, ESADE Business School, in Barcelona, and were co-founders at a previous floral startup.
- Andrés, CEO, has a history in entrepreneurship; he started his first floral startup, AG Roses, at just 18. Andrés gained tremendous experience working at Citibank in their investment banking division.
- Marc, CMO, co-founded AG Roses back in the day and ran the sales and strategy divisions. He got to train his strategic skills and abilities during his career at Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK).
- Sergi, COO, was also a founding partner of AG Roses. He is passionate about entrepreneurship and an operations killer! He gained significant understanding and admiration for the ever-evolving tech industry whilst he worked at Amazon.
The role differentiation in the management of the startup makes for a fantastic fit. They all have a cavernous understanding of the product and market and, more importantly, theyâre driven by passion!
In a matter of just a few months theyâve proven to obtain admirable traction levels, however the ambitious trio seek to continuously outdo themselves to truly set a benchmark in the industry.
MARKET OPPORTUNITY
By eliminating the need for storage, Colvin Co. can deliver long lasting and inexpensive flowers as they donât need to account for the ludicrous wastage levels. After thorough research, here are a few trends weâve detected:
- The Southern-European cut-flower market represents +âŹ9.0 billion.
- Currently nobody connects flowers with a brand; we see an opportunity to build a brand within a current commoditised product.
- The industry is seeing a rapid switch from offline to online; in Spain, it represents 10% and is growing by the day!
- The offline industry is heavily saturated and experiencing limited growth.
- Global trend towards fair trade and organic flowers.
- Overpriced offline market, as offline florists increase their retail price in order to compensate for the significant wastage levels from the unsold products.
- Lifestyle brands successfully consolidating among millennials.
BORN ON THE WEB! đ¶
A DNVB (digitally-native-vertical-brand) is a brand, whoâs primary source of interaction is through the web. A DNVB may expand beyond the web, i.e. into brick-and-mortar, however the brand must always have a frantic focus on customer experience and customer intimacy.
The Colvin Co. is looking to disrupt the floral industry by transforming the way people purchase flowers. What makes them stand out is that they work day by day to improve supply chain efficiency and connect with growers to deliver âfarm-to-tableâ products.
The Colvin Co. is a fantastic example of the unavoidable and inevitable digitalisation of offline industries!
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED đȘ
We are truly overjoyed to welcome them to the SV family! We want to help The Colvin Co. become the reference brand for cut-to-order flowers in Southern Europe. So, the next time you think of flowers, think of Colvin đž
