Dispatch is a Boston-based startup which offers a platform to bridge businesses into the on-demand economy. Dispatch announced today the closing of a $3.1M round of seed funding, unveiling the industry's first delivery and scheduling platform for on-demand services. The company offers a mobile extension for enterprises existing systems and offers APIs for marketplaces and developers and a self-serve set of products.
'Customers want a seamless experience that enables them to book immediately, know exactly when their service professional is going to arrive and then pay with ease,' said Avi Goldberg, co-founder and CEO, Dispatch.
The company's proprietary platform allows businesses to better enable their customers by allowing them to track arrivals in real-time from scheduled services either through a smartphone or online. The customers are also able to instantly locate and book immediate or scheduled service.
Start-ups such as Dispatch are enabling the infrastructure for the On-Demand Economy. Dispatch aims to reshape the $450B home services industry, an industry in which 1.2 million service providers have struggled with improvements in customer satisfaction areas. Early Dispatch customers such as Handyman Connection acknowledge such challenges within the landscape, turning to the company to address the current evolution between the impact on customer satisfaction and evolving market trends.
“We have an exceptional network of home repair professionals, but wanted to provide our customers with greater ease in scheduling and to significantly reduce the wait times so they don’t have to sit around half the day waiting for someone to show up,” said Jeff Wall, president and CEO, Handyman Connection. “Dispatch’s service will help us create a much better customer experience.”
Dispatch currently is the only platform which caters to both markets and provides on-demand services for startups, developers, technology entrepreneurs and enterprise businesses. The platform is easy to launch with feature sets created for faster integration. The dispatch app allows users to track from any location in real-time. A dispatcher is able to efficiently manage jobs, schedules of payments and customers and view user location and status.
'We are positioned to become the underlying infrastructure that links these consumers and the on-demand economy with legacy businesses and startups,' Goldberg stated.
Dispatch’s investments were co-led by GrandBanks Capital, Promus Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Kima Ventures, Launch Capital and included prominent individual investors Mark Goldstein and Ray Lane.