Snap It, the last-mile delivery service for tradespeople, has secured £2.1 million in seed funding. The service, launched just before the pandemic, has already transformed the way tradespeople in London work, saving time, money, and the environment.
The round was led by ActivumSG Ventures, with participation from Force Over Mass Capital (FOM Capital) and LiFE Ventures. It also attracted funding from angel investors including former world boxing champion David Haye, Onefinestay founder Greg Marsh and Oliver Stork.
Snap It’s founder and CEO, Viktor Muhhin, spoke to TFN about how Snap It got started, and the next steps for the business.
A service inspired by the pain points of trade
Muhhin is not a traditional founder. At a time when startups are often founded by serial entrepreneurs, or academics monetising their research, Muhhin began as a plumber. “I come from Estonia, and arrived in London as a young man to make some money and explore,” he recalled. “But because I couldn’t speak English too well, I ended up working on building sites.”
However, it wasn’t long before he started developing his trade knowledge. “I started working with plumbers, which I found interesting because it’s quite mechanical,” he tells us. “Then I became a Gas Safe registered engineer.” Muhhin soon found that his trade had developed into a burgeoning company, but also started to see the pain-points that inspired Snap It.
“As my company grew, it was sometimes difficult to source materials on demand. I used to drive around to pick up materials myself or deliver them by Uber,” he recalled. As anyone who has used a tradesperson will know, when they tell you they need to get materials, it usually means a significant break in work.
Realising that procuring supplies during a job was taking a significant part of his day, he started researching further. “We realised that tradespeople, on average, are losing around two hours a day of productive time.” It meant that a typical tradesperson used time worth nearly £50,000 a year to get supplies, money they either lost, or their customers had to pay for despite no work being done. Snap It was his solution.
Making a difference for tradespeople, customers, and the environment
Snap It has quickly grown to become a major part of trade in London. Muhhin, however, is keen to avoid comparisons with other last-mile delivery services, and highlights the difference between Snap It’s B2B services and B2C deliveries. “When you get food delivered on demand it is a bit of a luxury, but Snap It is a necessary for tradespeople. It means they can provide better services for their customers and earn more money for it.”
He also adds that the nature of the business means the orders are bigger: “our average order value is around ten times large than any other last-mile delivery.”
Snap It has also developed a highly scaleable model. Tradespeople can order through an app, which connects them to the nearest merchant. Partner merchants are provided with an iPad that allows them to respond, and Snap It’s API then uses white-label carriers to arrange pick-up and delivery. The model helps to support both independent tradespeople and independent merchants, Muhhin says. “Snap It aggregates independent merchants to create a national supply. And we enable tradespeople to get the items they need from the nearest shop.”
“We have the highest density of shops in London, where we have already passed ScrewFix, and the number is growing.” Muhhin also points out the environmental benefits. “The shorter our delivery distances, the faster the deliveries and the less carbon emissions created.” And the impact has already been significant. “We calculated that while we’ve been trading, we’ve saved the equivalent of the amount of carbon dioxide Hyde Park absorbs each year.”
Growing in London, and beyond
Muhhin plans to use the fund to expand their team and their service. Currently 15-strong, he is proud of having built a diverse team in a sector that is not traditionally known for diversity. “The building and trades industry is very male dominated,” he says. “What we’ve created in Snap It is very diverse, representing over ten different countries, both genders and different sexualities. We’ve managed to bring in people with industry knowledge, but also add those with scalability know-how.” Muhhin hopes to add to that with staff to further develop the product and their expansion.
He plans to develop Snap It to offer a wider range of services, for example allowing independent merchants to use their service to deliver to consumers. Snap It also plans to expand services to institutional user, “We want to be able to support housing associations, or insurance companies providing home cover, so we help those businesses make sure they can fix things when they come out.” Snap It is also looking at expanding outside London. “We are looking to launch a second city, possibly Birmingham, ahead of our Series A,” Muhhin told us.
Snap It has developed a model that supports independent merchants and tradespeople, while helping the environment. But customers may be the biggest winners. “Currently, you have to arrange your whole say around tradespeople,” says Muhhin. “But imagine if they could just fix everything in a single visit. Snap It drives better customer service, more transparency, and happier customers.”
