Bea Warner and the team at Exaactly, members of TheWorkary, Brompton (until Summer 2017) have secured a whopping £100K investment from the John Lewis Partnership and L Marks JLAB retail accelerator programme! Massive congratulations to the whole team!
BUT, WHY ARE WE SO EXCITED?
Isn’t JLAB just another accelerator programme? No. JLAB is a programme of development that focuses on building a strong relationship between the startup (Exaactly in this case), John Lewis and Waitrose as well as helping your business get to the next stage. JLAB offers access to investment, desk space in John Lewis HQ, a first class education programme and access to John Lewis and Waitrose data, customers and expertise.
Exaactly entered the 2017 Smarter Supply Chain Category which looks for smarter, more effective supply chain solutions in an ever changing market. The category looked for innovative solutions to and ideas around last mile deliveries, reduction in waste, farm to fork traceability, efficient customer fulfilment, efficient returns processing, asset pooling, & smart product IDs / Internet of Things.
SO, WHAT IS BEA’S SOLUTION?
An app that enables customers to save their delivery preferences, including detailed instructions for how couriers can find them and where to leave parcels when they are not there met the criteria perfectly. The Exaactly team are driven by their aim to reduce failed deliveries, improve customer satisfaction, save carriers time and drive brand loyalty for retailers set them up for success in their field.
WATCH THIS TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT EXAACTLY….
HOW DID EXAACTLY IMPRESS AT JLAB & SECURE THE INVESTMENT?
The early stage startup impressed the John Lewis Partnership by managing to run two successful end-to-end delivery pilots — with real customers, real drivers and real deliveries, all during the 10 week JLAB programme. The first pilot was with Waitrose groceries and their own fleet, the second with Waitrose speciality shops, fulfilled by UK parcel carrier, Yodel.
This £100K investment from the John Lewis Partnership signals their appetite to continue working with Exaactly & continuously raise the bar of the last-mile delivery experience. Alongside Exaactly in winning the JLAB accelerator investment were WeFiFo, which connects amateur chefs with consumers.
For Exaactly, the investment comes as a welcome addition to the pre-seed round that the young startup raised earlier this year in July: Exaactly raised £260,000 from a series of angel investors and funds, including; Dragons Den investor, Shaf Rasul; Samos Investments; and the OION fund, managed by Innvotec.
