The delivery services offered by Kyiv businesses vary greatly. It might take an hour or two for pizza to get cooked and delivered, but a smartphone already in stock can take anywhere between 10 and 30 hours.
This situation spurred Daniel Tonkopiy to
launch a one-hour delivery service called Delfast on electric bikes in
October. By year’s end, he broke even on his own investmentof less than $1,000.
Now 100 orders are processed daily by 30 couriers on staff, with access to 33
bikes at any given time.
More than 25 Internet stores have corporate
accounts with Delfast and offer the service as their delivery option for
merchandise weighing not more than seven kilograms. The price is fixed at Hr 50
(around $2) for anywhere within Kyiv’s city limits, with the uniformed and
helmeted courier keeping Hr 20 for themselves. It increased from Hr 40
following the devaluation.
Delfast is on the cusp of expansion regardless
of the tough economy. In February, the startup gained a $250,000 capital
injection from the venture fund Imperious
Group and CEO Tonkopiy, 36, plans to use the money
for further advertising and capital expenditures, including new bikes and
batteries. In the meantime, he’s trying to recruit Kyiv’s mega Internet
retailers, such as Rozetka, Prom.ua, and Comfy.
Electric-bike delivery is novel to Ukrainian
cities, particularly with their central cobblestone streets and pothole-plagued
avenues. Yet traffic jams and rising gasoline prices boosted the appeal of the
electric option and Tonkopiy was confident his idea would work.
One electric bike worth $700 can ride up to
120 kilometers without needing a charge. The amount of energy spent on 100
kilometers costs barely Hr 3, or 13 U.S. cents, he said, while the average car
expends around 10 liters of fuel on 100 kilometers, which is around Hr 200, or
$8.5.
Tonkopiy researched producers throughout
Ukraine, selecting Kyiv’s Veola and Odesa’s Volta Bikes. He also found a talented engineer in
Dnipropetrovsk, who moved to Kyiv to work with Delfast.
Often Tonkopiy and his business partner Serhiy
Denysenko deliver goods themselves. “Without participating in this work, it is
impossible to ‘feel’ the market. You cannot understand the work of couriers and
dispatchers in the smallest details unless you try doing it yourself,” Tonkopiy
said.
A native of Kazakhstan, he moved to Kyiv in
2010 and launched several startups before Delfast. This is his first project in
logistics though, which he said grew out of his passion for electric-powered
vehicles. He rides on electric bikes 40-50 kilometers almost every day, he
said.
Tonkopiy guarantees delivery between any two
points within one hour inside Kyiv’s city limits. To put his service to the
test, several of his friends placed orders and it took longer than an hour just
a handful of times. He doesn’t regard it as that big of an issue.
“We are all people and different stuff can
happen on the road, which might prevent a courier from delivering within an
hour. We do our best to keep late deliveries at a low rate,” he said.
Besides his commercial interest, Tonkopiy
delights in the fact that his business isn’t polluting Kyiv’s air any further.
“Every project demands a lot of love and fun.
I like to ride electric bikes myself, so this affection also adds to why I plan
to popularize the service,” he said.
Orders for delivery can be placed by phone or
online via the service’s website, www.delfast.co, where clients can register and set up a personal account. If an order
is placed with a partner e-tailer, then Delfast delivery pops up as one of
several delivery options. The Kyiv Post confirmed that no other courier service
offers one-hour delivery.
Kyiv Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be reached at [email protected]. The Kyiv Post’s IT
coverage is sponsored by AVentures Capital, Ciklum, FISON and SoftServe.
