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The pandemic has normalized delivery in the US, but even before the health crisis, sales at restaurants alone were growing 7% to 8% a year, about twice the rate of sales in the entire restaurant industry, according to McKinsey. The problem is, delivery can be a nightmare on both the restaurant and merchant side. Among other challenges, businesses rely on a single partner to deliver their offerings, making them highly vulnerable to fluctuations in supply and demand and service reliability.
Mahmoud Gulman founded Nation on a mission to make delivery less of a headache, a platform that brings together delivery providers that allow businesses to choose the ones that make the most sense, value and availability. Nash plugs into third-party delivery APIs from DoorDash, Lyft, Uber and other partners, providing software for them to manage and deliver to their customers.
“Over the past few years, my co-founders and I have seen how consumers expect incredibly fast, reliable delivery at a price that retail, delivery and transportation giants do. . “However, the complexity and high costs associated with running and maintaining this last-mile delivery operation has created a landscape where medium and small businesses struggle to meet consumer demand. We therefore wanted to build a software and logistics solution that would enable any business to easily enable reliable local delivery by building custom workflows and connecting a wide range of suppliers.
Image Credits: Nash
Gulman met Nation’s other founder, Aziz Algunaim, at a science fair in high school, and the two attended MIT together. Alghunaim was previously an engineer at Palantir and helped Tarjimly, a Y Combinator-backed startup that aims to reduce language barriers for dependencies while providing support services.
Gulman and Algunaim founded Nation in early 2021, and the company participated in Y Combinator’s S21 batch. To the surprise of investors, apparently Nash today closed a $20 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz with backing from Y Combinator, Rackhouse Venture Capital and “leaders in the technology and supply chain space.”
“Today’s newly announced $20 million in Series A capital brings our total funding to $27.8 million, as a previously undisclosed $7.8 million came from our seed round late last year, which was led by Andreessen Horowitz,” Gulman said. “This funding will be used to double the hiring in engineering, operations, sales and other key business functions. We plan to increase our 25-employee headcount from 2x to 3x by the end of the year to match our explosive growth.
Using Nash, businesses can manually select delivery providers or have the platform automate the process. Either way, you’ll get price and time estimates and information about the recipient, including their contact address and location.
TThousands of merchants can access the platform for personal and group (i.e., multi-pickup) delivery routes through the Nash partnership, Gulman said, reaching 94% of the U.S. population in nearly 1,000 cities.
To optimize routes, Nash uses AI and machine learning to predict its courier delivery performance based on variables such as pick-up time, drop-off time, package price, distance and drive time. Nash supports various delivery options, That includes scheduled and one-hour deliveries as well as store-to-store deliveries and customer returns, Gulman said.
“What we’re doing to deliver is what Stripe did for payments: we’ve built a simple API and workflow builder,” Gulman continued. “Businesses can use our API platform to build custom delivery workflows or access Nation directly through our technical partnerships with industry-leading marketplaces, aggregators and resellers. This approach makes it easier for teams to reduce the technical costs needed to maintain high-performing shipping operations.”
Image Credits: Nash
The on-demand delivery market has always been on the capital-intensive side, and it’s not particularly healthy right now, as evidenced by mass layoffs at delivery startups like Gopuff. Gullman declined to provide firm numbers on Nash’s revenue and customer base, but assured me that Nash has not been affected by the broader slowdown and is “well positioned” to weather any potential headwinds.
“The pandemic has caused an unprecedented increase in demand for local supplies across all industries. Many companies could not keep up. Some were forced to close. And starting or running a shipping business was more challenging than usual because of the reduced workforce,” Gulman said. “Nash has helped hundreds of businesses gain new customers and revenue streams by eliminating the technical, logistical and operational costs associated with providing a reliable delivery experience.”
As for what’s next, Nash plans to further expand into verticals such as retail, auto parts, pet supplies, food and feed, laundry, flowers, printing and packaging, pharmacy and small packages. Nash is shifting its focus to new markets, including Canada and the United Kingdom, which it plans to launch later this year.
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