DriveYello – Lion Unleashed Accelerator 2017
By Steve Fanale, CEO & Founder at DriveYello
driveyello.com
Drive Yello helps businesses efficiently manage last mile logistics so they can meet the ever increasing demand of express delivery. The Yello platform makes it easy to inform customers of delivery status, manage their own drivers and riders or book delivery personnel from the market place for a shift or single delivery.
Why did you apply to the program?
DY was ready to scale and we were looking for outside assistance and funding to help make that happen. The Lion Unleashed program looked like the perfect vehicle to put us on the road to success.
What’s it been like working with Lion?
Lion have been great to work with. They have been supportive from both a funding and business opportunity perspective. They are the lead investor in our series A round and have also looked for opportunities to help us grow our business within their customer base and internal operations.
What’s the biggest learning you’ll take away from the Slingshot program?
Being part of the scale up program we unfortunately weren’t able to attend all the training programs but being part of the cohort our biggest learnings come from seeing what worked and didn’t work for our colleagues. There is nothing like real “fail fast and learn” experiences to help crystallise what needs to be done in your own start up. That’s the best thing about being part of an accelerator/scale up cohort.
What was your favourite aspect of the program?
Startups/Scaleups in Australia don’t have the funding and support networks that are available to their peers in other parts of the world. I believe corporates can play a big part in changing this and the slingshot programs are helping facilitate this change. Getting access to a corporate who is willing to support our Scaleup was great for us.
What’s next for your Startup?
We are in the process of closing our series A round and scaling same day last mile delivery across Australia. We have some of the largest retailers in Australia using the Yello platform and the need for our service is only going to grow with “on demand delivery” soon to become the norm for retailers, driven by the rise of consumer expectations.
