This past summer payment operator QIWI and mobile taxi booking service Сitymobil invested $500,000 in Today Delivery, a crowdsourced e-commerce delivery company. The deal has just been revealed by Russian startup blog Firrma.ru.
The startup was valued at several million US dollars, a Today Delivery representative told Firrma.ru, without disclosing further details.
Today Delivery presents itself as analogue of UberRUSH: “The recent launch of UberRUSH in the USA shows the long-term benefits of such a model”, said Today Delivery co-founder Sergey Prokhorov.
“Investing in Today Delivery, we believe this project to be promising thanks to the rapid growth of crowdsourcing in Russia. Several thousands of couriers and courier drivers have already joined the service, which means that the project might well become a successful business model for the logistics market”, commented Edwin Lukanov, QIWI E-Commerce & Logistics Project Director.
Today Delivery claims to have made available some 3,000 couriers and courier drivers from CityMobil’s network. Delivery time is reduced to no more than two hours in Moscow and around, the startup says. The service will be extended to other cities with populations exceeding one million.
Deliveries by a courier and courier driver are available at fixed prices: 390 rubles (about $6 at the current exchange rate) and 290 rubles ($4.5) respectively. Payment can be made in cash, via the Visa QIWI Wallet or using one’s current bank account.
Today Delivery also has corporate clients, including restaurants and online stores.
Several recent deals have shown investors’ interest in Russian e-commerce delivery startups. In late 2014, e-commerce shipping service provider Top Delivery secured an investment from Impulse VC, a venture fund backed by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.
In July this year, Yandex relaunched its in-house service Yandex.Delivery after failing to integrate Multiship, a startup which it acquired in early 2014. This past October Avito.ru, Russia’s leading classifieds site, announced that it took control of logistics service aggregator CheckOut, buying the shares of venture investors Altair VC and Edison Venture Capital.
