Kansas City startup RTF Logic has raised a $120,000 seed round to continue building Truckily, an app that aims to connect food trucks with customers.
More than 50 trucks nationwide are signed up for the app—$30 per month for businesses after a 14-day trial—which provides a location-based marketing tool that can automate social media, send push alerts to users and create virtual punch cards. The app—currently only on iOS—is free for consumers. The team of Derek Kean and Matthew Berkland listened to beta testers and have “shifted to be the generator of information,” Kean told Silicon Prairie News.
“The main thing we are striving to build is a one-app location for all facets of digital marketing, Web presence and brand loyalty for food trucks,” he said. Each time a truck changes location, it can make one update in the app (right) in order to update its location on the Truckily map, its Facebook page, Twitter and Foursquare venue address.
Investment for the app is in Truckily’s parent company, RTF Logic, which builds “enterprise-grade software” in the retail and transportation industries, according to its website. The company also lists farmers market app FarmaGoGo and “mobile business” app Okey as currently in the works, but Kean said the funds will go toward Truckily.
Gravity Ventures, a backer of The ARK Challenge—a Fayetteville, Ark., accelerator Truckily participated in last year—came on as an investor along with Branson, Mo.-based Kea Ventures, with the rest of the money being raised through friends and family.
On the startup’s blog, Kean cited the experience at the three-month, mentor-driven accelerator as crucial for understanding how to provide logistics and marketing for food trucks.
What’s next?
“Once our team is comfortable with our progress, we will begin expanding the platform into other areas that are currently identified, while keeping our ears open for markets that are open for growth,” Kean said. “We are ramping up our efforts once we iron out any remaining ‘facepalm’ errors.”
Kean said the goal is to release the Android version by late June or early July.
