Expats' appointment-booking startup lands $US6m in Series A funding

A pair of expatriate Kiwis in Dubai have raised $US6 million for their three-year-old appointment-booking software startup, Shedul (pronounced “Schedule”).

The Series A round was led by Dubai-based MEVP and backed by Dubai’s BECO Capital and San Francisco-based Lumia Capital. It follows a seed round also led by MEVP.

Co-founders William Zeqiri (early 30s) and Nick Miller (late 20s) both went to Auckland University before ending up in the United Arab Emirates.

They haven’t disclosed a pre- or post-money valuation but do claim 40,000 merchants across 120 countries use their cloud-based service.

Shedul is marketed on its website as a tool for salons and spas to book client but Messrs Zeqiri and Miller say they are targeting a broad range of small and medium businesses. As well as appointment booking, it has inventory, reporting and messaging features.

At the moment, more than half of Shedul users are in the US, followed by the UK, Canada, and Australia, they say.

They say the platform is on track to process over $1 billion worth of appointment bookings by the end of 2017, by which time Mr Miller says the number of merchants on its books should top 80,000.

Revenue is easy to calculate: nothing.

Access to Shedul is free, though a monthly fee will be introduced in the future.

A sample Shedul screen

Shedul has 19 staff, spread across the UAE and Poland (its software development team is based in Warsaw). Mr Miller says that will double to 40 by year’s end. The new capital will also be used to open a US office.

Online appointment booking is nothing new, with the health and beauty sector a popular target.

Asked to name key competitors, Miller says “In US MindBody and StyleSeat, and in UK and continental Europe TreatWell.”

NBR would also add the Dunedin-based Timely.

What’s Shedul’s point of difference?

“It’s super easy to use software at the most accessible price point,” Miller says.

Free is pretty accessible.

His broader point is that the market is still wide open. He says 52% of salons in the US still use pen and paper for bookings.

How did the pair end up in the Middle East?

The Waikato-born Miller was with inventory operations for Vodafone NZ before becoming a programme manager for the New Zealand consulate in Dubai for five years.

Mr Zeqiri was e-services manager for North Shore City Council before Auckland’s amalgamation, then went on to hold chief information officer, project manager and programme manager positions with a UAE-based healthcare provider.