A few months ago we saw the headlines that the online local supermarket service Weezy raised £15m in their series A, and in the recent week Turkey-based Getir raised substantially more to become (yet another) unicorn in the sector. There’s no question that fast-scaling service oriented companies will be ongoing beneficiaries of investment in the months and years ahead.

An investment we recently evaluated at Axial Capital is gaining ground in this space, though not in the UK market. AOW is the brain-child of an American ex banker who is now firmly rooted in Thailand and expanding his on-demand and ‘online only’ grocery service across Asia. Dressed up as a supermarket service, these businesses are ultimately logistics plays and it’s the Amazon-like technology and distribution network that serve as the driver of value and defensibility. Plus enough capital to make a quick run at securing market share of course.

Fairly simple at conceptual level – select your chosen items on an app and shortly after have a bicycle delivery rider arrive at your door – scaleup businesses in these virtual convenience sectors are adding another line to the national output ledger, and creating jobs where more redundant sectors are inevitably trimming back headcount, at the same time as giving you and I the ability to redefine how we operate on a personal level. We see a positive period of evolution ahead, something we’re excited about.