Same-day delivery service Deliv Inc. received a $40 million Series C funding round from investors, including Google, Clayton Venture Partners and the venture capital arm of Enterprise Holdings, bringing its total funding to $80.4 million.
Existing investors, including United Parcel Services Inc., General Catalyst Partners, The Macerich Company, PivotNorth Capital, RPM Ventures and Upfront Ventures, also participated in the round.
Deliv, founded in 2012, is an on-demand platform to provide same-day delivery in 35 major markets using independent drivers. The company will use the new money to further develop the platform’s technology and build its operational infrastructure, which includes hiring more people as the company expands, says Daphne Carmeli, founder and CEO of Deliv.
Currently, Carmeli says, Deliv has about 100 employees and a network approaching 100,000 independent drivers. The 35 metro areas it serves include about 1,400 individual municipalities, Carmeli says. So far, Deliv has been roughly doubling its employees and sales every year, she says, but declined to offer projections for future growth.
Deliv has more than 5,000 retailer clients, including giants like Walmart Inc. (No. 3 in the Internet Retailer 2018 Top 1000), Macy’s Inc. (No. 5), Best Buy Co. Inc. (No. 8) and Home Depot Inc. (No. 7). Deliv also works with shopping platforms like Google Shopping Actions and luxury apparel online marketplace Farfetch Ltd. Other clients include online-only retailers, such as web grocer FreshDirect, meal-kit company Plated, online flower service The Bouqs Co., business-to-business companies and other small businesses.
Unlike consumer-facing, app-based delivery services like Instacart, Carmeli says Deliv “lives on the checkout page of retailers’ e-commerce websites.” By offering its service on the back-end of transactions, she says, Deliv allows retailers to control their relationships with its online customers. That helps the retailers and also greatly reduces Deliv’s cost structure because it does not have to market itself directly to consumers, Carmeli says.
“We’re not acquiring [consumer-level] customers,” Carmeli says, and not paying the costs associated with doing so. Orders of bananas, flowers or other items are made with the retailers directly, with Deliv’s network of drivers handling the “last-mile” delivery to a consumer’s home. In addition, she says, the company’s crowdsourced model means it does not have to own assets like trucks or distribution centers.
Earlier this week, Deliv announced that its services will be integrated with Pitney Bowes Inc.’s SendPro C-Series delivery devices. The devices allow users to weigh parcels, select services, schedule pickups, print labels, track deliveries and get notifications. Through this arrangement, Pitney Bowes SendPro users in markets where Deliv operates will have the option of using those devices to order Deliv same-day delivery services.
The week, Deliv also teamed up with Jyve, a crowdsourcing platform that connects retailers with on-demand access to in-store workers. Under the deal, Deliv will offer same-day delivery services, while Jyve will provide grocers with workers to handle tasks such as picking and packing, merchandising and taking orders.
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