grabll
It started with a simple question…

From a market stall to a marketplace.

Why is good food so hard to find? This is the story of how one question, a team of believers and a lot of whiteboard ink became Grabll.

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the market stallgrabllAdd to carta marketplace
10+years in technology and digital products
1idea: make buying local as easy as shopping online
6MVP features shipped on Grabll.com
$100Kfirst investment from a private investor

A note from our founder,

Why is good food so hard to find?

Hi, I'm Shahen Markarian, founder of Grabll. I've spent more than 10 years working in the technology and digital product industry, including several years in Europe.

One thing I always appreciated about European culture was how deeply local markets were woven into everyday life. You could visit a farmers market and buy fresh vegetables, fruit, bread, cheese, honey, meat and handmade products directly from the people who produced them.

People cared about quality, but they also cared about who they were buying from. Supporting farmers, makers and independent local businesses was simply part of the culture.

When I moved to the United States, I started noticing something different. There are incredible farmers, growers, makers and small businesses everywhere, but discovering them isn't always easy. At the same time, genuinely fresh, high-quality food can be surprisingly expensive at traditional grocery stores.

That made me wonder:

What if technology could make buying local as easy as shopping online?

That idea became Grabll.

ShahenShahen Markarian
Founder, Grabll

The road so far

Every stop on the way from a question to a real product.

  1. Stop 1 · Europe

    Life around the market

    Buying fresh food straight from the people who grew, baked and made it.

  2. Stop 2 · United States

    Something different

    Incredible local makers everywhere, but hard to discover, and fresh food that costs more than it should.

  3. Stop 3 · The question

    What if buying local was easy?

    As easy as shopping online. That idea became Grabll.

  4. Stop 4 · The team

    Not built alone

    Software developers, designers and marketers who believed in the same idea.

  5. Stop 5 · The work

    Build, break, rebuild

    Countless hours designing, building, testing, breaking things and rebuilding them.

  6. Stop 6 · Launch

    The MVP goes live

    Grabll.com launched with signup, store listings, product pages, cart and checkout, delivery and pickup, and reviews.

  7. Stop 7 · Milestone

    First $100,000 raised

    Our first investment, from a private investor. Only the beginning.

  8. Next stop

    More sellers, more towns

    Marketing, onboarding sellers, a mobile app, better search and your feedback.

I knew this couldn't be built alone.

I brought together a team of software developers, designers and marketers who believed in the same idea. We spent countless hours designing, building, testing, breaking things, rebuilding them, and talking about how to make local commerce better.

Eventually, the idea became a real product.

A Grabll team member at his desk studying performance charts on a monitor and a laptop.
Heads down, buildingShipping the MVP
The Grabll team around a meeting table with laptops, two teammates joining on a video call.
One team, every screenTeam sync
  • We built our first MVP and launched Grabll.com
  • We raised our first $100,000 from a private investor
  • And that's only the beginning
For shoppers

Find what's great, right nearby.

An easier way to discover great products nearby, learn who is behind them, compare options and buy locally.

Start shopping
For sellers

Compete without the giant budget.

More visibility, more customers and better tools to grow your business online, instead of another marketplace dominated by huge retailers.

Sell on Grabll

Geography shouldn't be a disadvantage.A small farm or family business shouldn't need a massive advertising budget or a sophisticated technology team just to reach customers in its own community.

When you buy local, you're not just buying a product. You're supporting…

a farmer,
a maker,
a family,
a business,
your own community.

Our vision: the digital infrastructure for local commerce.

Bigger than another marketplace. We want discovering and supporting the businesses around you to feel as natural as ordering from the biggest online platforms.

Local deserves better technology.

That's why we're building Grabll.

Start shopping localSell on Grabll