Open your front door via smartphone and never miss a package again: That's the promise of the Munich-based founders of nello. Find out more in our 7 questions.
1. Who are you and what do you do? Please introduce yourselves briefly!
nello one is an upgrade for intercom systems that allows you to easily open your front door via smartphone — without a key and ideal for anyone living in cities. The best part: With nello You'll never miss a package again because it can be delivered to your door at any time. We are five founders (TUM and CDTM). Chris and Daniel know each other from their studies. Ermal, Iurie, and Timur joined us two years later, after we sold our first product, the parcel bag, to Burg-Wächter and focused exclusively on keyless home access.
Landlord does not need to be asked
2. But that's been around for a long time!
There are smart locks for apartment doors, and there are intercom solutions that are installed centrally by property managers. The nello is the first solution that allows end users to make their intercom system smart, allowing them to manage access from anywhere and receive packages at their apartment door. Furthermore, no landlord permission is required for installation, as it is a temporary modification to the intercom system in the apartment.
3. What are the three main ingredients for your recipe for success?
1) Clear focus on customers and clear use cases.
2) Very good team with all IoT core competencies in-house – five founders.
3) Have a total of over 2.5 million in venture capital raised pre-launch.
4. Let’s get down to business: How is business going?
We've now started shipping our pre-orders. In the spring, our monthly pre-order volume was over EUR 20,000 and has grown by over 401,000,000 per month.
5. What does Munich mean to you?
Four of the five founders aren't originally from Germany, but they studied in Munich and feel very comfortable here. We value the region's hardware technology expertise, which also enables us to operate local production in Bavaria.
6. How will your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we see you soon at Epic Fail Night?
By becoming the operating system for keyless home access – like Android for mobile telephony.
7. Schwabinger 7 or Bob Beaman?
Hmm.. neither 😉 .
