E-commerce delivery technology company Lula announced a $5.5 million seed round of funding co-led by Ripple Ventures, Outlander VC and Up Partners.
Founded in 2020, Philadelphia-based Lula provides a platform for convenience stores to offer last-mile delivery of online orders. The company has a partnership with National Convenience Distributors (NCD), which is a wholesale distributor of candy, snacks, fresh sandwiches and salads, cigarettes and cigars, coffee, ice cream, and frozen and refrigerated foods to more than 14,000 retail customers in 11 states.
“There are over 150,000 convenience stores across the United States, and over 90% of the population lives within 1 mile of a store. It’s baffling how hard it is for stores to take advantage of online delivery. Lula aims to make convenience stores just a little more convenient by helping them deliver on every delivery platform online in the easiest way possible,” said Adit Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Lula.
Gupta and Tom Falzani, both graduates of Drexel University, founded the company after seeing firsthand the impact COVID-19 was having on Gupta’s grandparents’ convenience store in New Jersey. The founders sought to create a platform that allowed convenience stores to sell online and automatically connected them to top delivery platforms like DoorDash, Grubhub, Postmates and Uber Eats.
Lula has now raised $6.5 million in total funding. The seed round included participation from SOSV, simple.capital(), NZVC, Stonks.com, EasyPost, Park City Angels, Alumni Ventures, Broad Street Angels, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, and a number of angels.
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Lula’s platform enables convenience stores to digitize their inventory in a single location and rely on third-party delivery companies, allowing locations that couldn’t provide on-demand delivery services due to a lack of personnel to benefit from this new revenue stream.
“I’m excited to see Lula ramping up to make delivery services accessible to local businesses. The pandemic has hit Main Street hard, and Lula is a great way for local merchants to access the rapidly growing delivery space. Adit and Tom have identified a huge opportunity and I’m extremely proud of Adit’s journey through Ripple X,” said Matt Cohen, managing partner of Ripple Ventures.
Lula offers a zero-commission platform, handling everything for the retailer from account management and customer service to marketing and delivery. In an interview with the Philadelphia Business Journal in 2021, Gupta explained how Lula is different from Gopuff, another delivery platform founded by Drexel graduates that has since reached unicorn status.
“What we’re doing is, instead of competing with these brands — we actually love these brands — we’re actually just giving convenience to customers, letting them order from any app,” Gupta told the publication.
Customers can order products from their local convenience store through the delivery provider’s app. Lula facilitates this through its Lula Convenience Store listings within the apps.
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