German startup Sennder wants to ship parcels via long-distance buses

Sennder thinks it has the solution for getting packages from one place to another in a short time and with low costs. It wants to do this by using long-distance buses. The newly founded startup already has some investors on board and more will follow at the end of the year.

Sennder, just founded last summer, has crawled into the courier, express and parcel market and wants to deliver parcels to customers cheaper and faster, by using long-distance buses as well as private and professional city couriers.

‘Efficiently, flexible and sustainable’
On its website, the Berlin-based company says it aims to reduce costs, especially for cross-border transport, and to deliver parcels on the same day or even during holidays. Co-founder Nicolas Stephen says the company is driving the integration of long-distance buses and other service providers in the field of logistics to make use of already existing capacity. “This should lead to packages and small parcels to be delivered more efficiently, more flexible and more sustainable.”

The parcels are collected centrally near bus stations and distributed among the different buses. At the point of destination, the receiver has the option to either pick up his parcel at the collection point or to have it delivered. For the latter, Sennder wants to work with couriers. The first agreements with long-distance bus suppliers for the transport of parcels are closed and Sennder is currently in talks with several local carriers for the “first and last mile” within a city.

Connect consumers with transporters
The first step of Sennder was to launch a mediation platform for transport this month. On Sennder.com people with delivery requests and private and professional transported are connected with each other. For now, the focus is on the transportation of bulky, unwieldy and fragile cargo, but next year it will be expanded to smaller packages and deliveries.

For this first phase, several angel investors have shown interest in the German company. By the end of this year additional capital will be collected through a financing round, so next year the company can expand and integrate other service providers.