WeBringg set to raise €3.5m in latest funding round

Dublin-based same day delivery business WeBringg is preparing to embark on a €3.5m funding round in order to scale up the company internationally.

WeBringg set to raise €3.5m in latest funding round

By Trish Dromey

Dublin-based same day delivery business WeBringg is preparing to embark on a €3.5m funding round in order to scale up the company internationally.

WeBringg — which, last month, was named best start-up company in this year’s Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur competition, which won the company €35,000 — employs a staff of 29 and operates in the UK, New Zealand and Australia as well as Ireland.

The new funding will be used to finance R&D activity and to further roll-out services in the company’s international markets, as well as to employ extra staff.

“We increased turnover in 2017 by 10 times and are aiming to quadruple it in 2018,” said chief commercial officer Alan Hickey.

“We expect to have 35 staff and 6,000 drivers by the end of the year,” said Mr Hickey.

The company’s largest market is the fast food industry, which has always used same day delivery, but it is working on building up customers in other sectors including grocery as well as pharmaceutical, fashion and electrical goods.

Centra, SuperValu, Powercity and Just Eat are clients, with Burger King having recently been added in the UK and New Zealand.

Set up two years ago WeBringg has taken a 21st century approach to home delivery by developing a platform which connects point-of-sale systems, both online and in store, to a pool of crowdsourced delivery drivers.

“Our aim is to disrupt the delivery industry. We offer delivery in 90 minutes or less for a cost of €6.99 within 10km,” said Mr Hickey.

Mr Hickey says the company’s innovation lies not just in the use of technology by using crowdsourcing to create a pool of 4,000 drivers which operate by paying WeBringg a cut of the delivery fee.

“We are now the largest delivery provider in Ireland for Just Eat — and we also deliver for Just East in the North, Scotland, Australia and New Zealand.”

He said starting with the fast food market – which now accounts for 70% of turnover — made sense for WeBringg because this was an easy sell for this type of business.

Contracting out the development of the technology, WeBringg made its first delivery in June 2016 — a crate of wine for a Dublin off-licence. Cold calling to potential customers to persuade them to try the new service, Mr Hickey said was difficult at the beginning. “We needed delivery people to offer a service but needed customers to provide work for delivery people — it was a bit of a chicken and egg situation.”

At the end of 2017 the company raised €850,000 in investment, increased the workforce to 18, and set up operations at a premises in Chapelizod.

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