SY Batch 7 Alum Ouibring Gains Investment – With a Twist
Good news often comes all at once. Yesterday we announced that Neuron Soundware had raised €600,000, and StartupYard has raised €1 million in a record breaking investment round. Today we’re able to announce that Ouibring, a StartupYard company (Batch 7) that helps travelers and shoppers to bring joy into each other’s lives by bringing rare items home with them from abroad, has also raised seed investment.
OuiBring Founder and CEO Joel Gordon, signing a deal with Busyman.cz
The Details
The seed investment comes from the Czech incubator Busyman.cz.
Since joining StartupYard in late 2016, Ouibring has quickly built a following of more than 60,000 Facebook fans. Filip Major, the founder of Busyman commented: “Ouibring has the potential to change the global consumer goods logistic system as UBER is changing the way people move”.
The investment will power global expansion, as Ouibring connects more of the 30 million flights carrying almost 1 billion travelers each year with shoppers all around the world.
Ouibring connects shoppers who need help sourcing hard to find products, and travelers with spare luggage capacity to create a win-win situation. On Ouibring’s platform it’s possible to order hard-to-find goods from your home country, or discover new items that travelers can then bring with them when they visit a city near you.
The Twist
Busyman.cz has acquired a minority stake in Ouibring using a digital commodity, “Crown,” which is a “non-pre-mined” digital currency.
Crown has a market cap of more than $13m USD, processes hundreds of transactions per day on its blockchain and provides powerful security features. As part of this deal, Ouibring will move its client-to-client transaction settlement onto the Crown blockchain, making every transaction easily trackable, efficient and transparent. Ouibring also aims to emit its own token of exchange on the Crown blockchain.
“Our customers care about security and compliance. Using the Crown blockchain to create unique new features will help make Ouibring even more reliable and easy to use for our customers” says Joel Gordon, CEO and founder of Ouibring.
About Ouibring:
In our interview with him earlier this year, Joel told us the story behind Ouibring as a new online shopping experience:
” The idea for Ouibring came from experiences gained living and working abroad for the last 15 years. The fun and excitement when a special package delivered by a friend arrives is the inspiration for Ouibring’s tagline – ‘Bring a little happiness’.
As any expatriate knows, living abroad can give you a special appreciation for things that those at home just take for granted. You look forward to that time when a friend will bring a special something you’ve requested from your home. That’s a magical feeling, as if you’re the only person in the world that has what you have. We wanted to capture that feeling, and make it something anyone could enjoy. A special moment of joy only for them; an experience no one else is having.
At the same time, we can give others the chance to make a bit of money, and reduce waste by sharing their spare luggage capacity.
One story I really like is how even a small, generic item that is plentiful in one location can provide a whole lot of pleasure and luxury when it appears in an unexpected context. When a Ouibringer arrived with three massive bags of Monster Munch Pickled Onion and delivered them to a travel blogger living in Bangkok. They really made her day.”
What’s Next for OuiBring
CEO Joel Gordon moonlights as a user of his own product: here he delivers some treats to customers in Thailand.
Ouibring has already attracted hundreds of shoppers and travelers from around the world. The company is continuing to explore alternative approaches to shopping and fulfillment for adventurous people everywhere.
So, to celebrate this big step for the young company, why not jump over and order something for yourself, or sign up to bring a little happiness into someone else’s life?
You can now apply for StartupYard Batch #8.
- Robots
- Artificial Intelligence
- VR/AR
- IoT
- Cryptography
- Blockchain
