By Riley Kaminer
Ever find yourself craving a burger while driving home from work?
Bringing such a juicy dream to life is more of a pain than you might expect: scrolling between apps, fumbling through your wallet, coordinating the perfect pick-up time to minimize waiting while keeping your food warm.
Miami-based Mavi has got the solution for you through its product, OnMyWay, enabling users to place delivery orders right through their car.
To accelerate their growth, Mavi today announced that it has raised a $3 million seed fund led by Winter Park-based GOVO Venture Partners. Additional investors including REFASHIOND Ventures, some early Amazon Executives, Double SS Group, and a fund associated with the Schottenstein family also participated in the round.
The company will leverage these funds for product and business development, said Mavi founder and CEO Cynthia Hollen, who has led retail and eCommerce companies and consultancies for over two decades. In an interview with Refresh Miami, Hollen also said Mavi hopes to increase its 14-person team by four people in the next four months.
“We hope to hire in Miami,” she said, sharing a particular interest in finding local talent across marketing and product roles – especially with a focus on restaurant tech salespeople.
“REEF hired a lot of people to Miami,” Hollen noted. “As people migrate away, that’s created a mini restaurant tech flywheel here.”
In April, Mavi will roll out in 20 million cars and 200,000 long-haul trucks. The company inked these deals through a variety of partnerships, enabling it to deploy Mavi’s system in vehicles from brands including Stellantis, Audi, and Volvo.
“We build into the dashboard of the car,” explained Hollen, and then the car manufacturer can push the software update through.
The platform is fully automatic: from recommendations to ordering to payment to curbside pickup. It includes a curated group of retailers, restaurants, parking lots, gas stations, and more – enabling these providers to acquire new customers and increase customer loyalty.
“Mavi is looking not where the consumer market is, but where it is going, as retailers look to bring their customers back to their doorstep and automakers look for a way to capture the extraordinary amount of commerce taking place while consumers are on-the-go,” GOVO managing general partner Rob Panepinto commented.
“Mavi’s technology will also support governments’ interest in ensuring car-based transactions take place in a safe manner. The company’s leadership, made up of senior retail, technology and automotive industry experts, brings together the talent to support these goals.”
Miami-based GOVO general partner Jonathan Kilman will serve on Mavi’s board. Kilman also serves on the board of Jacksonville govtech startup Urban SDK, which has made a name for itself by providing mobility intelligence for smart cities.
Hollen underscored the timeliness of Mavi’s offering. “Before the pandemic, only 2% of retailers were preorder and curbside pickup capable. Now 90% are. We all got so used to doing pre-orders – wating in line? Are you kidding me? That’s barbaric!”
Equally, Hollen noted that consumers are getting sick of the inconvenience and cost of delivery. Meanwhile, car technology, especially 5G, is improving and starting to become more commonplace every day.
“When these things come together, it’s a perfect storm,” said Hollen. “And it’s happening now.”
READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:
- Your order? “OnMyWay!” thanks to Mavi’s in-car shopping solution
- Mavi revs up its in-car shopping experience with $1.775 million funding round
- Dare to Daash? Miami startup lands $2.75M to give retailers data-driven predictive insights
- Plei is making playing soccer as easy as ordering an Uber
- REEF plans to hire 1,000+ in the Miami area and announces initiative to help do that
