Who Should Attend: Single and Multi-Family Office and early stage investors.
What: Opportunity to invest with Zootly, a technology company that is addressing a number of challenges facing the traditional moving and logistics business. Typically, moving companies report 50% underutilization of assets at any given time and have been slow to adopt technology into their back offices. They find it challenging to stand out among a crowded industry landscape and spend a great deal of money on marketing and advertising. Customers have become complacent with frustrating moving experiences riddled with bad stories of bait and switch practices, onerous estimate processes and bad actors in the industry. Launched in 2015, Zootly deploys vehicles and crews whenever needed via the Zootly website or the Zootly mobile applications for any move or delivery. The customer simply answers a few questions about when they want to move and where they want to move it and Zootly handles the rest. Zootly matches that job with an underutilized partner’s capacity and delivers an outstanding customer service experience – at the time that customers want. Customers are able to handle booking, tracking the movers and their belongings, paperwork, payment and even tipping all through the Zootly app.
The company is seeking a $20 million in equity investment to expand its services across the U.S. and Canada this calendar year.
Peer Insights Report Interview
Company Overview:
Launched in 2015, deploys vehicles and staff whenever needed via the Zootly website (www.zootly.com) or the Zootly applications on both Google Play and Apple App Store. Residential or commercial customers can then track movers, delivery teams and trucks from their phones to get instant updates. Businesses benefit from these services, which allow them to complete business moves or deliver their products or equipment efficiently without the costly overhead of owning trucks and employing delivery crews. Movers benefit from the Zootly service because it significantly reduces their sales and marketing costs for acquiring new customers, and filling their underutilized trucks.
Industry Overview:
Moving Industry Dynamics and Challenges:
- $57 billion spent on moving and moving related services in the U.S. each year
- Margin – The moving industry is fragmented, capital intensive and subject to external drivers that erode margins over time. No easy way exists to help the moving industry improve their margins by increasing utilization while reducing the cost of customer acquisition and sales. Typical utilization at any given time is 50%.
- Industry Perception – Consumers consistently obtain multiple quotes and perform extensive research to select a moving company in hopes of avoiding the all too common pitfalls. There is no third party that vets, on-boards and certifies moving companies into a network that adheres to a code of conduct and defined service level agreements.
- On-demand – On-demand moving services are not readily available and powered by modern mobile technology. In a digital world the sourcing of a move is still very much analog. Consumers do not have the ability to order a move as easily as they can order a car, a house keeper or a meal via their mobile devices 24/7.
- Crowded sector with undifferentiated competition.
- Expensive salesforce
The Zootly Solution
Zootly, a technology company transforming the moving and logistics industry, has built the largest community of movers in the New York metro area by building a network of only the best, most customer-service oriented moving and delivery partners. These partners only enter the Zootly network when they are certified through a rigorous vetting process by Zootly. Zootly’s mission is quite simple, and that is to replace the common frustrations associated with the moving industry with a more efficient, cost effective and simplified moving experience.
Zootly Certification Program is a rigorous certification process conducted by Zootly to source only the best, licensed, registered and customer-service oriented moving partners. The one-of-a-kind certification program uses proprietary technology to assess all levels of risk associated with a moving partner at the on-boarding stage and then 24/7 thereafter to ensure compliance with Zootly’s high standards at all times.
The Zootly Moving Application further simplifies the customer experience with a smooth and efficient process of creating orders and booking moves, multiple account options, social integration, custom email and app notifications, and new gestures.
The Zootly Estimator Application is a key cost saving tool for Zootly moving partners because it allows for a reduction in sales expenses and improved customer service based on its more accurate moving estimates. On the end user side, customers answer a few questions within the app, and based on their responses, receive fixed pricing instantaneously.
The Zoot Case is a patented moving and storage unit which allows a customer or moving company to pack the unit or multiple units lined up, lock them and transport them via standard moving trucks to another location or a storage facility. At a storage facility, the Zoot Cases can be stacked and moved quickly and easily in the proprietary racking system, allowing for greater warehouse efficiency and significantly reduced damage claims.
Executive Bios:
George Colwell, Managing Board Member/Chief Executive Officer
George Colwell has worked for most of his career enabling business transformation across people, processes, and technology for leading global financial services companies. Covering mergers and acquisitions, development of new lines of business, product innovation, channels innovation, and the digitalization of the entire enterprise, George has been focused on large scale change initiatives. Most recently, he was a part of SAP’s Financial Services Practice, leading the digital innovation partnership strategy for North American financial services.
George has worked in advisory and mentorship roles with various technology startups, including visual search recognition leader Slyce (TSXV: SLC), and mobilization accelerator Capriza.
Rudy Callegari, Managing Board Member and President
With a proven track record of creating innovative businesses, Rudy Callegari is an entrepreneur who is not afraid to take calculated risks. He is a business strategist with over 30 years of experience in advertising, marketing, logistics and transportation, and film.
Rudy is the Co-founder of Edge Auto Rental managing over 600+ vehicles, Founder of Edge Logistics, a logistics and freight forwarder operating in NY and TX, and Founder of Bright Pictures, an award-winning production company with offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. Most recently, Rudy launched Zootly in 2014 with offices in New York and Toronto. Zootly is a software development company specializing in the transportation, logistics and moving industry. Rudy serves as President.
Stephen Bacso, Chief Technology Officer
Stephen Bacso is a technologist and entrepreneur with more than 10 years of experience in data mining, data extraction and automated decision-making. He began his technology career by working on controls and display suite applications for the USAF Advanced Tactical Fighters and US ARMY Apache and LHX helicopters with Litton Systems, McDonnell Douglas and Bell Labs. Prior to joining Zootly,
Stephen was a consultant in the connected vehicle space for several years in Europe and the United States. He also founded PixStream, a video networking platform for telecommunication was later acquired by Cisco Systems.
Steve Hardwick – Managing Board Member/Chief Marketing Officer
Steve Hardwick has spent the last 30 years as an integrated marketer. He has been the President of three New York agencies, executed several very famous campaigns and has spent the last four years working with private investment to buy, build or fix the marketing operations for several companies. Mr. Hardwick was recruited by York Capital in 2013 to run marketing operations for all consumer-facing companies in the portfolio. His work on the overhaul of the factoring company, Novation Settlement Solutions, led to marketing effectiveness and efficiencies that reached all-time highs for the 15-year old company. He also brought back Smith Brother’s from near extinction and introduced it to a whole new generation. In 2012, Steve worked for Carriage House Partners to build a marketing technology company using proprietary technology to drive scale and efficiency into traditional marketing methods.
Heidi Davidson, Marketing Advisor/ Public Relations Lead
Heidi Davidson is a Marketing and communications executive with more than 20 years of experience helping companies of all sizes tell their stories. She has expertise in crisis communications, CEO and Board level transitions, and change management. Heidi is Co-Founder of Galvanize Worldwide, a marketing and communications consulting firm based out of New York and Toronto. Heidi also works as a consultant for image reputation firm, G.F. Bunting in the Greater New York Area.
Heidi’s very high profile, professional resume includes serving as Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing for the Canadian company, BlackBerry Limited (formerly Research in Motion) and before that, Senior Vice President and Group Head, and Franchise Development at MasterCard.
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