Shipping ain’t easy. You have to pack up your goods and figure out the best service to ship them on, which no one does, and then you have to take your stuff to the local FedEx/UPS/DHL dropoff location and figure out whether or not you want to send your items First Class, or track them, or insure them.
San Francisco-based startup Shyp wants to ease the pain of shipping by providing a mobile app and pickup service for anyone who needs to send items by mail.
Customers who wish to use the service need only take a photo of the item they’re shipping, enter their address and the address that the items are being sent to, and what level of service they require. A Shyp driver then picks up the item and takes it to the company’s local warehouse for boxing up and shipping.
There, Shyp does the work of packaging the item and determines the best shipping service to use, whether it be UPS, FedEx, DHL, or the good ol’ fashioned U.S. Postal Service. That will depend on where the package is going, how soon it needs to get there, and the level of reliability. Shyp always goes with the lowest cost and highest reliability, depending on the type of item.
Shyp charges just a $5 pickup fee for all items in San Francisco, plus the cost of postage. All packaging materials are included, and the company promises to securely wrap items to avoid breakage. But in case anything happens, the company provides insurance of up to $1,000 per item to guarantee safe delivery.
After months in beta, the service is opening up to anyone who wishes to ship an item in San Francisco. (TechCrunch readers who wish to save $15 off their first shipment can use the code TECHCRUNCH15.)
Shyp has raised $2.1 million from a group of investors that includes Homebrew Ventures and Sherpa Ventures, as well as a number of angels that include Tim Ferris, Antonio J. Gracias, and Daymond John.