Postmates, the fast-expanding US ‘crowdsourced’ same-day delivery business, is planning to start up operations in Europe next year, with London first on its list.
Founder Bastian Lehmann said at this week’s TechCrunch Disrupt London conference that his company would launch in the British capital sometime in the second quarter of 2016. But the German-born entrepreneur, who founded the San Francisco-based company in 2011, was cautious about prospects for other European cities, saying that Berlin and Paris, for example, would not work with the current business model.
Regarding Asia, he said Uber has “huge problems” in the region which presents “tremendous challenges”, making it more likely that the company would seek a partnership there, TechCrunch reported.
Lehmann also explained that Postmates had initially focused on food deliveries before gradually expanding into other kinds of deliveries in order to build up its logistics network. One of the latest deals was urgent deliveries from Starbucks in Seattle.
Other prominent US customers include Walgreens, the largest US drugstore chain, offering on-demand delivery of beauty, household, health and wellness items, initially from 600 stores, and the cult headphones company Beats.
Postmates currently operates in about 40 US cities. According to US media, the firm now has a delivery fleet of nearly 15,000 riders and drivers and has made more than four million deliveries for some 65,000 merchants across the US to date.
