On-demand delivery is a booming area for startups, and the latest one to emerge is Routific, which started officially this week. The new startup is not looking to be the next Uber out there but instead to provide the technology for businesses to use for their delivery services. It aims to help small-sized companies.
The advantage of offering such a service on demand for Routific is that it doesn’t have to worry about the complications of managing a bunch of different drivers who have to deliver to many locations. Then there is also the issues of late deliveries or poor customer service.
The move to sell its technology to small companies is different than how Routific first started, which was to provide its technology through an API. The addition, just released, is of a new web interface.
What Routific does is to take a businesses’ list of drivers and the stops they have to make and turns it into an optimized route for them. The routes can be seen via mobile phone, which is handy for dispatchers as well as drivers. It is a convenience when it has a mobile option.
The dispatch tool will work for up to about 100 vehicles. The original optimization tool that Routific uses plays on an algorithm that takes into account types of vehicles, load capacities, timeframes, traffic and more. It can improve speeds by up to 40 percent. Routific can alter to changing vehicle locations and incoming notifications by users.
Backing the startup is Axiom Zen, who also backs other startups in marketing and product dev areas. Routific launched officially on June 18. It is live in New York City, Toronto, Vancouver, and San Francisco. The company headquarters is in Vancouver. It could apply to other cities too, but it just isn’t being used by people in other places yet than those four specific locations.