Michael Nels joins Favor as its new vice president of engineering.
Founders Zac Maurais and Ben Doherty moved here from California and launched a grocery and food delivery service. It quickly gained visibility for its runners who wore bright blue T-shirts with a faux tuxedo front.
The service, which started initially in central Austin, has spread throughout the city, state and beyond. And it’s no longer just delivering groceries or food. Its Favor runners fetch everything from bandages at Walgreens to dry cleaning.
In March, the company landed $13 million in Series A venture capital from Silverton Partners, S3 Ventures and Tim Draper. To date, the company has raised $16.9 million in four rounds of funding.
As part of the latest financing, Favor has done some hiring. It just announced this week that Michael Nels has joined the company to lead its engineering team. Nels comes from SolarWinds where he was vice president of software development.
He joined Favor to head up the engineering for a startup in a fast-paced industry, Nels said.
“We intend to expand globally,” Nels said.
Already, Favor is in Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Nashville, Washington, D.C. and Miami. The company has also grown from two employees in 2013 to 50 employees today. Their headquarters is an old house on West Sixth Street.
Favor faces a lot of competition from other companies chasing the same market like Instacart, Postmates, Burpy and others. Favor’s customer service sets it apart from the competition, Nels said. And the demand is high for its services, he said.
“We run errands for basically anything that is legal,” Nels said. “People either spend their time or their money running errands.”
And Favor has found, in this booming economy, people are short on time and are willing to pay Favor runners to act as their personal assistants. The company’s mobile app is available on both Android and IOS mobile phone platforms. Favor makes money by charging a $6 delivery charge plus a percentage of the total value of the goods delivered. Tip is extra.
By the end of the year, Favor expects to have 70 employees, Nels said. With the latest round of funding, the company is building out its engineering, product team as well as marketing, branding and sales, Nels said.
“We are in complete growth mode,” he said.
