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Ahmed Fahour, Steven Lew back delivery disruptor Rendr

Sue Mitchell
Sue MitchellColumnist

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Latitude Financial Group chief executive Ahmed Fahour and retailer Steven Lew have taken equity stakes in Rendr, a startup aiming to disrupt the fast-growing on-demand delivery market by using professional carriers instead of crowdsourcing deliveries.

Mr Fahour, the former CEO of Australia Post, Mr Lew, the chief executive of Australia’s largest specialty homewares retailer Global Retail Brands, his chief operating officer Darron Kupshik and Hairhouse co-owner Emad Nayef are part of a consortium that has invested $2.1 million in a Series A round valuing Rendr at about $6.7 million.

The consortium is led by former Cache Group managing director Sonney Roth, who ran the Antler luggage business in Australia for 30 years before selling it last month to The Foschini Group chairman and Strandbags owner Michael Lewis.

Rendr co-founders James Fisher, left, and Greg Leibowitz started off delivering hardware and homewares to tradies and DIYers. They now count Ahmed Fahour and Steve Lew as investors.  

Founded in 2019 by 22-year old app developers and digital marketers Greg Leibowitz and James Fisher, Rendr started life as an on-demand delivery service for tradies and DIYers buying homewares and hardware.

Describing itself as the “Uber for plants, home and hardware”, Rendr had a network of about 80 crowdsourced drivers who bought goods in stores and delivered them to homes and work sites. It thrived during the DIY boom triggered by the pandemic.

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When Mr Roth, a family friend, was asked to help scale the start-up, he overhauled the business model, ditching crowd-sourced deliveries in favour of partnership agreements with professional transport and logistics businesses.

“I sat down with the boys and said this is great, the app was fine, but they were using crowdsourced drivers ... and I didn’t think it was scalable,” Mr Roth told The Australian Financial Review.

Rendr CEO Sonney Roth. 

Rendr also launched a new app, website and online marketplace, which integrates with retailers’ websites and e-commerce platforms, and is recruiting retailers and brands including Mr Lew’s House chain, Mr Nayef’s Hairhouse and Antler.

Rendr’s technology matches merchants and consumers with the best possible delivery solution, using a network of delivery partners from bike couriers who can deliver small packages in two hours to line haul carriers who can deliver goods weighing up to 1000 kilograms from interstate.

“We have 20,000 drivers from bikes to semis so we can do any delivery, which Uber Eats and DoorDash [which have crowdsourced delivery networks] can’t do,” Mr Roth said.

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Rendr is also in talks to provide third-party logistics for small brands and retailers, business-to-business deliveries to help retailers distribute stock from warehouses to stores, and is even considering a buy now, pay later product and overseas expansion.

“We have an amazing opportunity because we’re doing everything that everyone is doing but no-one is doing what we’re doing,” said Mr Roth, who wants to make Rendr a household name and is already planning a Series B or pre-initial public offering round.

“We could become disruptors in lots of different areas,” he said.

“We’re the new kids on the block but it was very easy to get investors on board for the Series A and when you have the support of Ahmed [Fahour] and Steve Lew you know you must be onto something special.”

Sue Mitchell writes the fortnightly Window Shopping column for the Financial Review and has covered retailing for over 30 years. Connect with Sue on Twitter. Email Sue at smitchell2045@gmail.com

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