Towards the end of 2019, we met an extremely bright and experienced 2nd-time founder, building a new kind of e-commerce platform.
“We don’t *do* e-commerce”, I rudely spurted at our investment meeting.
“Yeah, but this is different”, Mads stated, “take a look, have a chat with Amy and see what you think”.
When Mads says that, I pay attention.
As investors, it’s too easy to become jaded by the many pitch statements, the hackneyed phrases, so it’s super important to constantly keep an open mind. See everything that comes across the desk with fresh eyes.
Mads was right, this was different, it was thoughtful, smart, untapped, with capacity to expand across multiple sectors and territories.
They solve one particular challenge really well;
If you’re an international retail brand, with multiple e-com store-fronts in multiple languages, with multiple sets of inventory, rules, regulations etc. – it’s super hard to manage and keep track of your whole organisation – the stores in each country, their back office, the dashboards, all at a group level.
Many haven’t even attempted to face the problem and consequently, their client’s client experience is poor.
You’d think offerings such as Shopify would cater, but like others, they can’t due to how their infrastructure is set up.
When we first met the team, they were approaching any multi-tenanted retailer, but it became obvious fairly quickly that the first persona they should reach, with real pain points, were large premium hospitality groups such as the Peninsula, one of their first clients.
If you’ve ever stayed at a large hotel group like the Hilton, you’ve probably experienced how frustrating it is, post booking, to buy or manage hotel products and services – vouchers, massages, upgrades, F&B, or other. You’ve more than likely ended up picking up the phone (what’s that?) and dialling 0. Nowadays, we expect it all on our phones, 3 clicks away – boom, at the door.
That’s what Techsembly does. It enables premium hospitality brands to offer a premium shopping experience to their guests. And extremely elegantly too.
Increasing conversions by up to 70% and massively boosting revenue (keeping in mind this is for products and services they already offer. There’s more to come).
We’ve now supported Amy and the team with their last 2 funding rounds to drive global expansion. They are already working with many of the leading hospitality brands, with more major players to be announced in Jan. The company is on track to raise series A next year.
As with all of our portfolio companies, next time you’re out and about, have a think about what’s powering those clicks behind the scenes, making things easier as we make, move and manage our lives!