NCM is happy to see the current success of Huboo, a Bristol-based fulfilment centre that has previously received investment from NCM clients Episode 1 and Ada Ventures. Huboo is currently seeing the benefits of a business model that has utilised social distancing measures before the government regulations surrounding the coronavirus pandemic made it necessary. Huboo’s CTO and co-founder Paul Dodd designed their business model to operate ‘micro-hubs’ that have individual hub managers who run their own ‘micro-warehouses’. These warehouses carry out all the necessary tasks for between 1 and 30 clients each.
Huboo CEO and co-founder Martin Bysh said, “Social distancing during the working day came about organically. Of course, we introduced other safety measures such as quarantining on full pay, masks, hand sanitisers, repeated washing of surfaces throughout the day and staggered breaks once the crisis looked certain to get more serious. We also brought our new warehouse online early to allow us to move some larger clients to a larger space and further distance staff by removing small bottlenecks.”
The founders of Huboo noticed a gap in the market that provides fulfillment for small business and start-ups. This market, worth a total of £1bn in the UK alone, was uncontested and open to disruption. They raised funding in a seed round from Episode 1 and then topped up that funding with a bridge round from Episode 1, Ada Ventures and others. Following seed investment last year, Huboo has more than tripled its customer base and currently serves around 300 retailers. The firm was already seeing a 100% quarter-on-quarter growth before the pandemic and is now reporting 50% growth on last month's figures.
Bysh attributes the firm’s growth spike to Amazon’s decision to prioritise its own essential items and the closure of the high street forcing customers who had previously been resistant to online shopping to convert to e-commerce.
Source | BusinessCloud