Shipitwise, which is building booking.com-like service for logistics, has become the first startup to launch a funding campaign on Funderbeam, a new marketplace for startup investments.
Compared to relatively simple datasets for hotel rooms Shipitwise has already been dealing with challenges like delivering two bullmastiffs, who need to be walked every 3 hours and don’t like flying, from London to Moscow, or sending blood tests, skis and motocycles across Europe.
Shipitwise launched its campaign to raise 250,000 euros seed round last week, ahead of Funderbeam’s official launch event on April 21 in Tallinn.
Funderbeam is a kind of stock exchange for startup investments, but the investors invest in a separate investment vehicle, not directly in shares of startups. That gives startups just one partner to deal with in their investor relations, not possibly hundreds like in a comparable equity crowdfunding investing.
So far Shipitwise team has tested the demand, dealing with the first inquiries manually while building the platform and gathering the data from all possible providers.
It will automate it step by step, starting from motorcycles this week.
“Our special sauce is similar to the ones of booking.com, Airbnb or TransferWise – we collect, analyse and validate information on a very large logistics market and offer users the best solution based on their needs, not depending on offering of a single company,” Chief Executive Aleksander Gansen told ArcticStartup.
Funding campaign of Shipitwise, which has gone through Startup Wise Guys accelerator this spring, is scheduled to be opened until mid-June.
