Ziticity, the Lithuanian last-mile delivery startup has just closed a €2.2 million seed funding round. The round was led by NordicNinja VC backed by Japanese companies such as JBIC, Honda, Omron and Panasonic in participation with Superhero Capital VC, Practica Capital, StartupWiseGuys and Superangel VC, to fund Ziticity’s expansion in Europe. Prior to the current seed round, in July 2019, Ziticity raised €315K.
Founded in 2017, Ziticity empowers local businesses owners to compete with Amazon dominance by providing the platform for affordable same-day deliveries. With an on-demand solution, local e-shops and restaurants can optimize and distribute deliveries in real-time without usual distribution centres and paying high commission fees to shipping companies or food delivery platforms. In 2019, Ziticity also made it into the finals of our big annual pitch competition at the EU-Startups Summit.
According to Ziticity’s data, 60% of last-mile deliveries are within a five-kilometre radius from pickup to the drop-off location. Short delivery distances widen the possibility for couriers to use any means of transportation including cars, bicycles, e-scooters, etc.
Since launch, Ziticity has been a success in France and the Baltics, used by over 2700 companies like Telia, Tele2, Pizza Hut, and Euroapotecha pharmacies’ network. Thanks to urban batching logic, the reached average delivery time is 42 minutes and couriers are able to complete 4-6 deliveries per hour. This keeps prices affordable to the shopper, while couriers are able to earn +15% more per hour than in competing platforms.
The young company has been steadily growing 22% month over month ever since the launch with a sharp 44% revenue increase during COVID-19. After successful piloting, Ziticity is now preparing for entering several additional countries in Europe.
Laimonas Noreika, the founder and CEO of ZITICITY stated: “Local e-commerce cannot compete on product price with Amazon and Alibaba. To have a fighting chance with global tech giants that are building monopolies in e-commerce and restaurant delivery space, we have been able to build a direct service for local merchants to compete locally.”
Tomosaku Sohara, Managing Partner at NordicNinja VC, commented: “The delivery industry is expected to increase dramatically and 2.1 billion people are expected to buy goods online by 2021. On top of that, current global pandemic changes people’s behavior and habits like how they buy, sell and eat at an unprecedented rate of change. We believe that ZITICITY’s solution is a kind of silver lining approach for the industry and end-users which need to adjust for new normal.”
