GeoPost, the international subsidiary of the French Groupe La Poste, has acquired “last-mile” delivery startup Stuart.
GeoPost, the international subsidiary of the French Groupe La Poste, has acquired “last-mile” delivery startup Stuart.
Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, though it should be noted that GeoPost already held a 22 per cent stake in the French startup, having led its €22 million Series A round in late 2015 before the company had even launched.
Founded the same year by Clement Benoit (who previously founded restaurant delivery service Resto-In), and Benjamin Chemla (co-founder and previously CEO of Citycake.fr, which Resto-In acquired in late 2014), Stuart set out to disrupt last-mile logistics with better technology and a fleet of couriers to enable merchants to offer customers same-hour delivery.
It does this through the Stuart web and mobile app and via an API that means merchants of any size, including major chains, can build the service into their existing consumer-facing offerings.
The idea was to offer something akin to Amazon Prime Now for local stores and merchants. But unlike Amazon, Stuart doesn’t have to contend with delivering goods from out of town warehouses or logistics hubs but is solely focusing on the last-mile and delivering goods from within a city.
