Our First Investment
Sunstone has made an investment in Mallzee. After 8 months of networking, investigating and evaluating it is great to reach this milestone.
What is Mallzee?
Mallzee is a personal shopper for your pocket. The app has a number of really nice features. Choose from hundreds of similar items of clothing and swipe right or left to save those you like or dislike. You can share with your friends and get their opinion on which jacket or short or jumper you should or shouldn’t buy. There is even functionality in the app to stop you making that impulse purchase. If your friends say no, the buy option switches off. It works for both iPhone and iPad so you can have a better visual experience on the bigger screen if that helps.
Download the iPhone app here….
Download the iPad app here…..
So why invest?
Anyone who knows me will tell you that clothes shopping is not really my scene so why Mallzee? Four big reasons:
• Although this is an early stage start up, there is already a strong team. Cally Russell is the founder and CEO, great on strategy and PR. He is backed up by Callum Stuart as COO who really runs the business and is also strong on the technical side. Much more technical though is Jamie Sutherland the CTO who completes the senior team. They are backed up by Rachel, Laura, Alex and Ro. I spent half a day last week working with Jamie, Alex and Rachel and they are a great group as well as individually strong. Anyone looking at startups will tell you they invest in team. For me, Mallzee is unusual in having such a quality group at such an early stage.
• My second reason is also about the team in a sense. Mallzee delivers. Actually I should say, Mallzee measures and delivers. When I first met Cally back in November he had some clear targets in mind for user sign ups. These were met and exceeded in December and the next objective was release of the iPad version. Again, delivered on schedule. This tells me two things. Firstly the team understand the importance of setting measurable targets and secondly they work together to get things done.
• It is an idea which meets a real need in a compelling way. I may not be a great one for retail therapy but plenty of people are and I think it is certain that some winning offers will emerge in this space. Mallzee is mobile first which is critical. The social sharing and choice elements also give users a reason to stick with the app other than just discount offers. From Groupon onwards, there is a slew of companies trying to buy users but the winners need something more.
• This will help Mallzee build a good base. But it also has lots of room to grow. The core concept can easily be taken to other countries and other categories. The mobility and simplicity should make it possible for Mallzee to provide good linkage between the online and physical retail worlds, a key intersection. All of these things will help create a rich stream of data which I think will ultimately be the most valuable asset in the business.
What next?
With funding in place, Cally and the team will be going for growth and I know they also have plans in place to build the team and structure the business more robustly. I am sure they will invest the money well and expect to see Mallzee hitting the headlines in the coming months.
What is Mallzee?
Mallzee is a personal shopper for your pocket. The app has a number of really nice features. Choose from hundreds of similar items of clothing and swipe right or left to save those you like or dislike. You can share with your friends and get their opinion on which jacket or short or jumper you should or shouldn’t buy. There is even functionality in the app to stop you making that impulse purchase. If your friends say no, the buy option switches off. It works for both iPhone and iPad so you can have a better visual experience on the bigger screen if that helps.
Download the iPhone app here….
Download the iPad app here…..
So why invest?
Anyone who knows me will tell you that clothes shopping is not really my scene so why Mallzee? Four big reasons:
• Although this is an early stage start up, there is already a strong team. Cally Russell is the founder and CEO, great on strategy and PR. He is backed up by Callum Stuart as COO who really runs the business and is also strong on the technical side. Much more technical though is Jamie Sutherland the CTO who completes the senior team. They are backed up by Rachel, Laura, Alex and Ro. I spent half a day last week working with Jamie, Alex and Rachel and they are a great group as well as individually strong. Anyone looking at startups will tell you they invest in team. For me, Mallzee is unusual in having such a quality group at such an early stage.
• My second reason is also about the team in a sense. Mallzee delivers. Actually I should say, Mallzee measures and delivers. When I first met Cally back in November he had some clear targets in mind for user sign ups. These were met and exceeded in December and the next objective was release of the iPad version. Again, delivered on schedule. This tells me two things. Firstly the team understand the importance of setting measurable targets and secondly they work together to get things done.
• It is an idea which meets a real need in a compelling way. I may not be a great one for retail therapy but plenty of people are and I think it is certain that some winning offers will emerge in this space. Mallzee is mobile first which is critical. The social sharing and choice elements also give users a reason to stick with the app other than just discount offers. From Groupon onwards, there is a slew of companies trying to buy users but the winners need something more.
• This will help Mallzee build a good base. But it also has lots of room to grow. The core concept can easily be taken to other countries and other categories. The mobility and simplicity should make it possible for Mallzee to provide good linkage between the online and physical retail worlds, a key intersection. All of these things will help create a rich stream of data which I think will ultimately be the most valuable asset in the business.
What next?
With funding in place, Cally and the team will be going for growth and I know they also have plans in place to build the team and structure the business more robustly. I am sure they will invest the money well and expect to see Mallzee hitting the headlines in the coming months.
