Tag: Europe

First there was VOIP – the revolutionary new way to make cheap phone calls over the internet. Now there’s POIP – or post-over-internet-protocol – which promises to slash the cost of sending business letters.

A new company called Viapost has opened its doors and is advertising its services directly to small firms.

Founded by serial entrepreneur Ben Way, 27, Viapost will charge only 24p to deliver a one sheet letter the next day to anywhere in the UK – and it will pay for the stationery and ink.

advertisementViapost’s chief executive Simon Campbell, 28, said: “We are doing for the postal market what Skype has done for the telephone market. It’s so simple in many ways: it’s cheaper, it’s faster and it’s greener.”

Like Skype, firms register on the site, download the free software and add credit to an account, which is then accessed on a pay as you go basis.

Viapost has developed the software and has partnered with printing centres around the country so that letters can be printed close to where they are to be delivered. The firm still uses the Royal Mail’s postmen to deliver the letters to people’s homes.

Mr Campbell said the firm would have 10 printing centres in major cities like London, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow to start with. The target is 30 for full national coverage.

At the same time, Viapost is planning international expansion. “We are talking about sending a letter to Hong Kong that will arrive tomorrow and only cost you the price of a local stamp,” said Mr Campbell. “We want to go into the deregulated German market and the States. Within three years we are looking at handling over three billion items a year.”

Mr Campbell said large companies like banks and utilities were particularly interested by the environmental savings that could be made.

Carbon Planet, an Australian firm that conducts carbon audits, has just inspected the firm. “They found our processes will reduce 75pc of the carbon footprint of sending a letter,” said Mr Campbell, who is a serial entrepreneur having set up four businesses in the last six years.

Mr Way said he came up with the idea two years ago when he first read about the proposed deregulation of postal services.

“The more I looked into it the more excited I got,” he said. “I have to say that Viapost, if it’s a success, is the biggest project I have worked on in my life. It’s a GBP 5bn industry.”

Mr Way made his name developing a search technology called Waysearch, which later became a business-to-business product called Pulsar.

The business went bust during the dot.com crash, but he has bounced back and is now involved in eight ventures via his intellectual property development firm Rainmakers and in his role as chief innovations officer of Bright Station Venture’s GBP 100m venture capital fund.

Viapost has assembled an impressive board, all of whom have invested in the company. The non-executives include Chris Moss, founder of directory assistance service 118118, advertising guru MT Rainey, former Microsoft UK board director Natalie Ayres and David Bland, the former south east chairman of consumer champion Postwatch.