Hi everyone,
One of our investment theses at Applico Capital is the consumerization of the B2B customer. And, last-mile fulfillment is a key opportunity for B2B distributors to innovate, delight the customer and grow revenue.
We are very excited to announce our strategic investment into Curri, the leading marketplace for B2B last mile delivery. As Curri expands its offerings to provide software tools to distributors, we look forward to our continued collaboration with Matt, Brian and the Curri team.
Consumerization of the B2B Customer
The customer of distribution is getting younger – and their expectations are influenced by the digital buying experience they have as a consumer. However, in B2B distribution, we see the consumerization of the B2B customer starting in different areas than B2C.
For example, eCommerce still has very low penetration – less than 1% in overall volumes. So, where is the consumerization of the B2B customer taking place on the 99% of transactions? Said another way, if a sale is still happening through traditional channels, what are the key pieces of infrastructure that can be digitally modernized to provide that ‘consumer-like’ experience?
Payments and fulfillment.
Payments and fulfillment are the two biggest areas of value-added infrastructure. They surround the purchase transaction and give the B2B customer a delightful experience – no matter if the order is placed offline or online.
How Big is B2B Last Mile?
Between building materials, MEP and industrial distribution, there’s well over $2 Trillion in goods transacted annually in North America. Freight costs are usually 5-10% of the order, depending on the urgency and the weight/complexity of the delivery.
The top-down numbers are very large, to put it mildly.
The market is filled with thousands of carriers. These carriers perform a variety of types of services including mid-mile, DC transfers, last mile, and hotshots. It’s a fragmented market and hyper localized. Remind you of any B2C parallels?
The Pain in Last Mile Fulfillment
Branch managers and their teams are dealing with increasingly demanding needs from customers. The expectation of being able to place an order and get same-day or next-day delivery is becoming more commonplace. Customers also want to know when their stuff will arrive and be able to track that fulfillment journey. As a result, it’s getting more difficult for branches to keep up.
Curri solves that pain in multiple ways.
The leading marketplace of B2B drivers.
Doing a delivery for a B2B customer is quite different than a consumer delivery. There are legal differences like insurance, liability and SLA’s. And, there are technological differences – a lot of construction sites don’t have an address and the materials need to be dropped off in a specific place – or there’s security requirements, etc.
B2B deliveries are a lot more nuanced and vetted. Not to mention, you can’t just use a Prius. Achieving sufficient network density with box trucks is not an easy task.
Curri has solved this challenge by building the leading driver network for B2B last mile fulfillment.
Curri also has software to help the branch operate better.
In addition to providing the driver network, Curri’s solution goes even further – providing software that helps distributors and branches to operate more efficiently and to provide a delightful customer experience around fulfillment.
Route planning efficiency
Plan your routes more efficiently with their route planning software. Save time and money by making more efficient use of existing fleet resources. Curri Route Planner provides drag-and-drop functionality to build and plan routes. The map-based routing engine allows users to draw zones around orders on a map and seamlessly optimize them within a route. It also allows for users to control for multiple variables, including priority stops that can be plotted for optimal efficiency.
Customer updates and notifications from Curri and third parties.
The consumerization of the B2B customer also means that the customer likes to see “where’s my truck.” Curri’s software provides live driver locations and estimated time of arrivals, empowering users with real-time visibility into their deliveries.
Even if a branch doesn’t use a Curri truck to make the delivery – the branch can still leverage Curri’s customer facing technology with a third-party carrier. Third-party carriers are using their own route planning software that can integrate into Curri’s front-end customer experience layer.
Curri’s system sends automated customer notifications at key milestones throughout the delivery process, ensuring a seamless, transparent customer experience. It also captures proof of delivery with time and geo stamps and photos to document successful deliveries.
Reporting and Insights on Fleet Optimization
Lastly, Curri’s dashboards provide branch managers and regional presidents with insights about the utilization of existing fleet resources vs. the use of third-party carriers. These analytics and dashboard reporting can give quick and easy suggestions for how to better manage how many trucks and drivers your branches need – and which specific branches need the trucks more than others.
Team and Numbers
We’ve enjoyed getting to know Matt, Brian, Tyler and the Curri team over the past few years. We see them at events and know a lot of the same distributors.
And, in our diligence, the common feedback we heard from their customers were rave reviews about the people at Curri. Distributors operate in a people-centric business and, in our opinion, this is one of the highest points of validation a tech company can receive.
The Curri team has also surrounded themselves with great investors like Bessemer Ventures, Initialized Capital and Brick & Mortar Ventures. They’re well capitalized, having raised over $40M in their last funding round, and have used that capital to build a great business that supports and enables a key function of B2B distribution.
Getting to Know Curri
If you’re a distributor evaluating last-mile fulfillment capabilities, feel free to reach out to us at Applico and we’re happy to share our input directly or we can put you in touch with the right people at Curri.