Home Delivery Service raises $3m to fix broken e-commerce sector

Home Delivery Service (HDS Global) has raised $3 million for the launch of its robot powered e-groceries and general merchandise offering.

This is the brainchild of Louis Borders, pictured above, who also founded Borders Books & Music, Synergy Software, and Webvan.

“Covid-19 has revealed to consumers how supermarkets are unnecessary middlemen, between their families and the fresh goods they need,” he commented last year when presenting HDS Global to the world for the first time.

“We’ve worked relentlessly to ready a new kind of e-commerce service - starting with fresh grocery - around what consumers always hoped it would be: highly personalised, ultra-convenient, safe, exceptionally fresh, and eco-friendly - with no cost, tip free home delivery.”

According to a press release issued at the time: “By combining industry defining automation, AI powered software, eco-friendly delivery totes, along with free home delivery, HDS provides an unrivalled end-to-end experience, fixing all that’s broken in e-commerce today.”

It added: “The dramatic shift from in-store to online grocery shopping, brought on by Covid-19, has exposed the limitations of today’s e-commerce offerings.”

“Most notably, how human powered fulfilment centres are struggling to keep up with surging e-commerce demand, and how pick from store services are charging exorbitant delivery and service fees – if in-store shoppers are even available.”

While traditional retailers and online mass merchants must continuously update their legacy fulfilment systems to meet evolving consumer needs, HDS says that it has been built, from the ground up, with “touchless, automated fulfilment at its core”.

Key here is RoboFS, its patented automated fulfilment system. “Combining intelligent vision and AI with mobile and articulated robots, RoboFS transforms how goods are received, stored, picked, packed, transported, and delivered, resulting in fresher-than-store groceries, direct to the customer’s front door,” the company claims.

It also says that its AI-based software platform “powers a highly-personalised user experience, built around each individual shopper’s dietary needs, preferences, and brand favourites.”

“This also includes items such as made to order meats, poultry, seafood, and other prepared foods – customised to each shopper’s exact specifications.”