Supply chain start-up in the spotlight: LuckaBox

Founded in August 2017 in Winterthur, Switzerland, LuckaBox’s vision is to become the largest on-demand supply platform for deliveries and warehousing in Europe. Its mission is to enable retailers and e-tailers, particularly in the Fashion, Technology, Pharma and Automotive sectors, to put their customers into the driving seat of their deliveries and hence gain a competitive edge.

The platform, which is integrated as a delivery option into the retailer’s webshop, consolidates shipments from the participating bicycle courier services. At the heart of the business model is a specially developed algorithm which speeds up local deliveries to around 90 minutes or within a two-hour time window, while reducing costs. LuckaBox was co-founded by Aike Festini, former head of service delivery for Switzerland & Austria at Liberty Global, and Maite Mihm, and the team currently comprises eight people.

The start-up has partnerships with accelerators VentureLab, VentureKick and CTI, and its key customers include Steg Computers, PCP, Dalou Breakfast and ZoeRay. The company was chosen as one of the top 10 business ideas in Switzerland in 2017. It not only won the Swiss start-up competition called VentureKick Stage I & 2, but was also named the European Supply Chain Start-up of the Year in the contest organized by Supply Chain Media earlier this year. It won this award thanks to its smart use of existing couriers.

Leading European player

LuckaBox received initial funding of €130,000 and recently closed the first tranche of a seed round with €400,000. The revenue for 2018 is estimated at €300,000. Currently reaching 30 percent of the Swiss population in under two hours, the company is now rolling out the solution in Vienna, Austria, and will then target Germany on its path to become the leading European player in on-demand supply chain solutions.