Flexible website builder Munch has just raised €1.5 million for its platform that enables anyone to craft authentic and hyper-personal websites. The London-based startup now plans to develop its platform and expand.
Many people today, right around the world, have joined the side-hustle lifestyle. Taking entrepreneurial vision and inspiration to earn some extra cash on the side of a regular 9-5 job. As businesses now inherently need to have a digital presence, this growing community of side hustlers have been bringing their businesses online. Making a website, though, isn’t so simple.
From having to pay expensive website fees to the tech know-how that some website builders on the market require, for small business owners, going digital is proving quite the challenge.
Aiming to make it simple is startup Munch. Based out of London, the company has developed a platform that makes it simple to build hyper-personal, multi-functional websites that enable users to easily establish an authentic online presence or brand.
Fresh funding
Today, the startup has shared that it has raised €1.5 million in a pre-seed funding round. The investment was led by Notion Capital and Credo Ventures and will accelerate the young team’s mission.
As a result of this funding, Munch will be investing in its product growth and development teams, as well as expanding its marketing activities.
Jan Habermann, Founder at Credo Ventures, commented: “We, at Credo, love backing product-oriented founders. The team at Munch has the unique combination of technical ability with intimate knowledge of the space for which they have been building the product. And we really believe that such a combination has helped them to create a perfect tool for thousands of creative people who have been struggling with complexity and limitations of the existing platforms.”
Supporting entrepreneurial vision
Small business owners and SMBs are crucial to the European economy and the entrepreneurial spirit that often starts as a side hustle is pivotal in fostering innovation and economic stability. But, currently, small business owners are finding it more challenging than it needs to be to build an online presence – and we all know how important an online presence is to business in 2022.
Alex Bondarev, CEO and Founder of Munch: “SMBs are the cornerstone of stable economies, and most of these start as a side hustle. That’s where we want to focus first. We’ve had a great run with all the simple website-building tools, but now I feel it’s time for the tools to be as flexible as people’s lives are today. People who want to succeed online deserve better tooling, especially in the modern world.”
Munch is an all-in-one website builder. A tool that empowers creators, enabling anyone with a smartphone to build a fully personalized, fully functional online store in minutes. With it, users can create hyper-personalized websites using an intuitive and unrestrictive drag-and-drop editor – these sites are named “munches”.
Jake Yaxley, Product Manager at Munch, explained further: “The era of the side hustler is upon us, and yet the website building tools available are stuck in the dark ages. Given the current global economic climate, we shouldn’t be standing in the way of people creating secondary income streams. However, boring template-based website builders that charge large transaction fees on top of steep monthly subscription charges are stopping hustlers in their tracks. This is where we want to change the game. Munch removes excessive costs, rigid templates, or a need for code literacy; and we put the power back in the hands of the hustlers.”
Further, what makes Munch really stand out is that the platform is free to use and Munch only makes money when its users do. This means that for a new generation of side stickers and entrepreneurs, using Munch and creating a website is entirely risk-free.
In the US alone, it’s reported that 61% of people aged 26-41 currently have a side hustle to supplement their primary source of income. However, the insistence on templates means a lot of websites struggle to stand out, as they all look and feel very similar. Additionally, the fees eat into users’ profits before they’ve made any sales. Munch’s approach is changing up the game, and it’ll be interesting to see how it develops. The startup’s templates are completely customisable, allowing users to stamp their personality into their business.
Munch also has an ecommerce layer so users can sell via the website as well as utilize the features for tax, shipping and SKUs.
Kamil Mieczakowski, Principal at Notion Capital, said: “The latest Microsoft research found that almost two-thirds (62%) of Gen Z intend to start their own business and we believe that the Munch team have developed a perfect tool for it, while providing useful boilerplates puts the creator’s individuality at the forefront. The Munch team have lived and breathed the challenge of launching and running an online business and their deep understanding of the problem is now beginning to translate into an impressive product that is gaining more traction by the day.”
via https://www.AiUpNow.com
October 13, 2022 at 07:42AM by contact@bcurdy.com (Patricia Allen), Khareem Sudlow
