About

Plimni has developed a "super-app" that brings SMEs on the mobile e-commerce ecosystem. Current retail mobile apps entail high cost and complexity for SMEs and users. Imagine you’re the owner of a neighborhood retail shop. Your customers increasingly shop with their mobiles, but creating a mobile app is difficult and expensive — that's why only 16% of EU SMEs conduct e-commerce. You contemplate partnering with a delivery app, but they charge an eye-watering fee, and then aim to serve your customers through their own dark stores. Furthermore, delivery company apps cannot be customized to your special needs. The Plimni app solves these problems by allowing you to enter your products, and offer them for sale to your existing customers as well as other members of the Plimni ecosystem.

Solution & Product

The Plimni super-app* mobile application aggregates supply (retailers and producers), demand (consumers), and functionality (offered by independent software developers) to provide a low-cost, friction-free, feature-full service. [* A super-app is a mobile app that can provide multiple services as a platform. Examples include Alipay, WeChat, and Grab.] Plimni as an aggregator super-app allows consumers to use a single app, customizable for the unique needs of each retailer, for all their shopping. It also allows retailers to collaborate on delivery, product entry, and marketing. Furthermore, Plimni as a mobile app allows cell phone shopping on the go, coordinating and simplifying product delivery. Delivery can happen through click-and-collect or their shops' own services. Shops download the app and, in hours, can take online orders, thus onboarding mobile e-commerce at a low service cost.

Innovation & Scalability

Plimni's key innovation is its ability to serve bespoke app customization modules, named Plimnets, on demand. These solve the scalability problem of monolithic applications that either offer limited features or crumble under their own weight by trying to satisfy everybody and nobody. It is a feature that has been successfully employed on the web by Shopify's plugins. However, web apps lack native mobile app responsiveness and features, such as background location updates, push notifications, and barcode scanning. Moreover, deploying applets on mobile phone applications is difficult due to the closed nature of the Apple and Google app stores. Plimni's proprietary platform technology, based on a microservice architecture, server-side on-demand transpilation, secure sandboxing, and public key encryption allows modular applet development, deployment, installation and provisioning, thereby fueling the development of applets. The integration of further advanced (though not unique) technologies further enhances the Plimni's versatility. These include background location updates and associated order scheduling algorithms, product import APIs, barcode scanning, and the delivery of regulated products. Plimnets, developed in-house or by independent software vendors, can serve customers, retailers, and producers. We have identified more than 80 Plimnets. Individually developed, deployable and installable, they can serve verticals, such as loyalty schemes and clothes fitting.

Traction & achievements

The Plimni phone app (currently available on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store) is already being actively pilot-tested by retailers and customers. We have automated critical operational processes, such as business registration KYC, payments, and invoicing to achieve operational excellence and scalability. We have developed and deployed several Plimnets. We have also amassed a product database featuring more than 30,000 SKUs to simplify the shops' product entry process. The software development team has setup processes for working at scale and the product engineering team has streamlined the application's delivery and operations.

Team & Why Us

Plimni's founders have been cooperating and exchanging business ideas and expertise for years, trusting each other and sharing the same values and high aspirations on everything they do. They combine deep and varied experience in technology and consulting. The company's plan is to grow by regions (Greece, Europe, world) and by serviced retail sectors, increasing its consumer base and market share.

Funding Needs

Plimni is currently looking for seed funding to build up in three areas: 1) sales and operations, 2) marketing, and 3) ui/ux and product development.