Founded by Dutch entrepreneurs almost 10 years ago, Roamler has established its leadership in retail, serving clients including Unilever, P&G and Red Bull, through a community of mobile users who are performing tasks in stores. These range from setting-up promotions to mystery shopping and gathering insights. In more recent years the company has expanded its platform to provide in-home technical installations, service and repair for clients such as Eneco, Ring and ANWB, with a community of independent, professional installers.
The investment of 20 million euro will enable Roamler, already active in ten European countries within retail, to internationally expand its on-demand professional installations, service and repair activities, starting with the UK and Germany. The capital will also be used to expand the IT and data science team.
“Thanks to this new round of investments, we are confident we can further develop our range of services, combining our on-demand community, with a completely data-driven approach” – states Jeroen ten Haave, CEO of Roamler. – “Our business model enables companies to easily up- and downscale operations and get their results faster. At the same time it allows independent users to access more opportunities when and where they want.”
More than matching supply and demand
Other than most gig-economy platforms, Roamler goes beyond matching supply and demand. The company assumes full responsibility for the end-result by delivering a service that goes from matching the right user with the right tasks on the right location, to checking the quality of each assignment. This provides businesses with a great competitive advantage in terms of costs, flexibility and customer satisfaction.
Instant payments and automated invoicing system
Businesses are not the only ones benefiting from this new flexible approach. By joining the Roamler community, individuals can focus directly on their core performance and skip the activities that are not directly profitable to them such as sales, planning or invoicing. The flexibility offered by the platform allows each member to decide when, where and how much they work. This, together with an automated invoicing system and instant payments, contributes in allowing each individual to be fully in charge of his career and work-life balance.
Current investment round
The investors are Endeit Capital, SmartFin and Achmea Innovation Fund. Whereas Endeit Capital has been an investor since 2016, Roamler is bringing two committed investors on board with SmartFin and Achmea. Jelle-Jan Bruinsma, Partner Endeit Capital: “We’ve been working with Roamler for the past years, seeing them grow and improving their proposition. This investment is a key moment for the company and will allow them to solidify their European market leadership and expand their installation services internationally. I’m very excited to work alongside SmartFin, Achmea and the Roamler team to make this happen.”
Katharina Maass, Fund Manager at Achmea: ‘The first investment of the Achmea Innovation Fund, launched in October 2019, is a fact. Not only Roamler’s network, but especially their fully digital business model – where small tasks are managed effectively and with high quality – is interesting. With Roamler as a partner, we have the capacity to expand in the various domains in which we are already active at Achmea.
Bert Baeck, Partner at SmartFin “At SmartFin we operate with a clear strategic choice: to help Pan-European market-leading technology companies build and grow, and we believe that Roamler has the potential to create significant value in Europe.”
These investors join the existing shareholders of the company, consisting of the management, Eneco and PostNL. PostNL has specifically joined Roamler Care, the branch that was introduced in 2018 and focuses on healthcare services. With the growth capital, Roamler Care in the Netherlands will be further optimized.