New ultrafast online supermarket Jiffy to launch in the UK

London, 16 March 2021, — Jiffy, a new, ultrafast online supermarket that aims to deliver fresh groceries and household essentials in around 15 minutes, has raised £2.6m ($3.6m) in an initial seed-funding round to aid its launch in the UK. Led by venture capital fund LVL1 Group, the first investment round was attended by AddVenture, TA Ventures, Vladimir Kholiaznikov, and angel investors Oskar Hartmann, Alexander Nevinskiy and Dominique Locher. 

Headed by a team with extensive experience in online and offline retail, including former managers from Sainsbury’s, Deliveroo and Revolut, Jiffy aims to make it faster, easier and more convenient for customers to purchase fresh, high-quality products. It will offer a variety of fruits and vegetables, meats, meals, and household essentials from popular brands and local suppliers, with a total product range exceeding 2,000 stock-keeping units (SKU) per store. Jiffy’s service seeks to be a cut above local convenience stores and e-commerce by delivering products within minutes, without minimum orders or substitutions. 

Lev Leviev, founder of LVL1 Group, commented:

“Online express grocery delivery is a relatively new concept. It is gaining traction around the world and disrupting traditional neighbourhood convenience store shopping. Executing hyperlocal delivery requires a combination of online ecommerce and sophisticated offline retail and logistics expertise. Jiffy’s founders are experienced entrepreneurs with a proven track record in these areas, and we are confident in their ability to execute.”

The company will spend the first-round financing on launching the first stores in London, with an expected start date of March 2021. The first areas Jiffy will be available in are Westminster, Waterloo, Lambeth, Battersea, Clapham Town, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Hackney, Whitechapel, Stepney Green. The company plans to launch a further 20 local fulfilment warehouses – known as ‘cloud stores’ or ‘dark stores’ – across the UK later this year. It is already negotiating the next investment round to make its ultrafast grocery delivery service available across the UK. The company claims to have first-term sheets signed as it sees major interest from international investors.

Jiffy founder and director Arthur Shamalov said:

“We are building a mobile-first convenience store with a superfast delivery that aims to change the way people shop for groceries. Safety and social distancing concerns have accelerated changes in customer needs and behaviour, creating a rising demand for rapid and contactless grocery delivery. Neither traditional supermarkets nor existing e-commerce businesses have been able to satisfy this demand fully.

“Traditional supermarkets were not designed with quick fulfilment in mind, as they were built to make customers wander the aisles and spend more on impulse purchases. E-commerce businesses require ordering products way in advance. Therefore, neither is able to offer a solution for when you run out of something between your weekly shops.”

Over the past year, many UK customers who were forced to self-isolate found that not only were they unable to get their groceries delivered quickly, but in some cases, there were no available delivery slots for weeks in advance. As a Q-commerce business, Jiffy aims to resolve this issue for customers by building a hyperlocal business with a more efficient supply chain.

Quick commerce (or Q-commerce) is a natural evolution of e-commerce that has been growing in popularity all over the world. It facilitates speedy delivery by building multiple smaller cloud stores right next door to the customers and by utilising smart operations that track in-stock items in real time to ensure customers get exactly what they order exactly when they need it. This creates the kind of friction-free shopping experience and speedy order fulfilment that traditional supermarkets are unable to deliver.

Jiffy investor Dominique Locher commented:

“As a first-generation digital pioneer back in 1998, I was actively reshaping and transforming traditional food retail. But even 20 years later, today’s e-commerce delivery times are within a few hours at best. Shoppers’ needs are therefore not fully met through existing online services – customers have still to go to a classic corner store for their immediate needs.

“The next generation of e-commerce is all about speed and convenience, as Q-commerce brings small batches of goods to customers almost instantly. This category offers a tremendous opportunity that has gone largely untapped, and I am thrilled by the Jiffy team’s ability to tackle this challenge with energy and profound experience.”

About Jiffy:

Jiffy is an online supermarket with an ultrafast delivery service founded in 2020 and based in London. Jiffy’s mission is to transform customers’ online grocery-shopping experience to make it faster and more convenient to get the products they need when they need them. Its on-demand delivery service offers a wide selection of fresh produce, meals and household essentials sourced from popular brands and local suppliers at retail prices. The company uses a network of smart fulfilment centres, known as cloud stores, which are dedicated to serving the needs and are tailored to the tastes of local communities. 
Jiffy’s first cloud stores will launch in London in 2021, with further plans to expand across the UK. Its founder and director, Arthur Shamalov, has built and scaled eight foodtech and e-commerce companies. The team behind Jiffy has extensive experience in online and offline retail, including managing 600 stores and providing a super-fast delivery service that can fulfil 2,000,000 customer orders per month.