Australian parcel delivery startup Sendle has raised $1.8 million in seed funding in order to expand its customer reach.
The round was led by existing investor NRMA along with high-net individuals.
Sendle launched in November last year and aims to offer a frictionless delivery service for users in comparison to traditional options such as Australia Post through its online booking system.
Co-founder James Moody told StartupSmart it was great to see the startup go from just an idea to “having some good runway” for the next 12 months.
“We’re really keen to build up the platform and most importantly build up the support capacity,” he says.
“We want to be Australia’s most favourite parcel delivery service. It’s currently a chore and we want to turn it into something that’s actually a really enjoyable experience.”
Moody says the pickup and delivery market is ripe for disruption, as seen in the flurry of activity in the on-demand delivery space.
“The opportunity has come now for startups – which really tech companies are at heart – to start to work out ways to remove a lot of friction from that delivery process,” he says.
“We’re focused on consumer to consumer delivery or small business to consumer delivery. There is a lot of opportunity at this moment for startups to really think about how we reinvent a lot of the models that have been around for a long time.”
Springing from social enterprise TuShare, Sendle also offsets the emissions generated from its parcel delivery service.
“To send a package can take upwards of three kilograms of carbon dioxide,” Moody says.
“In that case the amount of carbon dioxide created may weigh as much as the package itself.”
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Broede Carmody is a former senior SmartCompany reporter. Before this, he was a co-editor of RMIT University’s student magazine Catalyst.
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