E-Commerce business Shutl is a delivery revolution: Founder and CEO Tom Allason has created an electronic marketplace that connects retailers with local couriers ensuring delivery within 90 min. of purchase or within a one hour time-slot of the consumer’s choice. In the video, Tom introduces the Shutl application.
Click here for Tom's interview with Tiburon-TV. For an overview of all interviews from LeWeb09, please click here.
London-based delivery startup Shutl aims to revolutionise e-Commerce by bringing it up to speed: The e-Commerce platform connects retailers to local courier companies enabling the retailers to offer their customers immediate delivery of online purchases (within 90 min. of purchase) or within a one hour time-slot of the consumer’s choice 24/7. The company launched at LeWeb09, where Tiburon-TV interviewed founder and CEO Tom Allason.
„We basically have created a market for courier companies“ explains Tom who’s a founder and former CEO of eCourier. „The real kicker here is that we can provide this premium delivery service at a comparable price to the standard delivery option.“ Shutl is initially launching the service in London, but plans to cover the rest of the UK in 2010 and then take it global. „To do the same in other countries is from our perspective quite simple“ Tom says and adds: „This works anywhere where there are shops and local ground transportation.“ Initially self-funded, Shutl did an angel round with Belgium-based Big Bang Ventures in the Fall of 2009.
French Tellmewhere startup combines local reviews, mobile social networking and location-based discovery. Following his Tiburon-TV interview at LeWeb09, co-founder and CEO Gilles Barbier has given a demo of the Tellmewhere iPhone app.
„We’re a mix of the best part of Qype, Foursquare plus local recommendation engines“ says Tellmewhere-CEO and Co-Founder Gilles Barbier in his interview with Tiburon-TV at LeWeb09. The Paris-based startup offers a web and mobile urban guide to discover new places suited to your tastes. „You can also rate and write reviews“ explains Gilles „the more you rate your experiences, the more precise and personalized your results become.“ Founded in 2007, the startup already has more than 450.000 registered iPhone users, mostly from France.
With version 2.0 of their iPhone application, Tellmewhere is going global with some very cool socializing features like an activity stream of everything your friends are doing. As for Tellmewhere’s business model, local merchants can propose „special offers“ on the Tellmewhere platform which are then monetized by the startup: Like a pay-per-visit model, each time someone uses a „special offer“ coupon, Tellmewhere charges the merchants a small fee.
To download the Tellmewhere app for your iPhone, please click here.
Paris-based startup Leetchi simplifies group gifts between friends. In this video, CEO and founder Celine Lazorthes provides a demo of Leetchi’s free and easy-to-use application.
Click here to watch Viktoria's interview with Celine.
Finally today we’ll start our LeWeb coverage with a portrait of Celine Lazorthes and her brand new Paris-based startup Leetchi. Right after graduation from Business School last year, 26-year-old Celine created the platform for free group gift applications. With Leetchi, groups of friends can join together to organize gifts of all kinds and collect money for them in a „Leetchi pot“. Once the group gift is fully funded, it can be bought through Leetchi’s e-commerce partners.
According to Celine, group gift-giving is a huge market: Each year $103 billion are traded between groups and friends, with one-third being only for group gifts. Two months out the gates, Leetchi still needs both higher visibility and more visitors: „It is our goal to have at least 2000 ‚Leetchi pots’ in 2010“ the young female entrepreneur says. In February, the startup will launch its B2B part with a widget for an e-commerce website. To get a feel for how the platform works just watch the demo at the end of our video.
Stay tuned for more LeWeb coverage in the coming days!
