The UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund has led a $2 million (£1.27 million) funding round into Shutl, with existing investors Hummingbird Ventures and GeoPost also taking part.
Shutl, which allows shoppers to receive online deliveries inside of 90 minutes, has also received past investment from a group of backers led by Simon Murdoch and Big Bang Ventures. It also has customers including UK retailers Argos, Kern Millen and Maplin.
London-based Shutl’s first funding round came back in January 2008 when it secured £750,000 of growth capital from Hummingbird Ventures and a number of other angel supporters.
It then followed this up with further angel rounds of £500,000 in October 2009, £400,000 in August 2010 and £650,000 in April 2011.
Its new $2 million round will allow the company, which was started by former eCourier.co.uk founder and CEO Tom Allason in 2008, to launch its service in the US in early 2013.
According to UPS, the investment demonstrates its interest in exploring different options for helping retailers serve online customers.
Allason, founder and CEO of Shutl, comments, ‘We’ve spent this last year taking Shutl national across the UK, now we are ready for the US, a market that we estimate will be worth around $26 billion by 2016.
The UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund is the ‘strategic’ investment arm of UPS and was founded in 1997. Its last deal prior to backing Shutl was in August 2011 when it led a $17 million investment into Kabbage, a company which provides financing options for online merchants.
