By Can Sezer
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish rapid delivery company Getir has tripled its valuation to over $7.5 billion since March after raising $555 million in its latest funding round, it said on Friday, part of an investment boom in the red-hot sector.
Getir plans to invest the proceeds in launching in Paris and Berlin this month following rollouts in London and Amsterdam, with several cities in the United States to follow in the last three months of the year.
Istanbul-based Getir, founded in 2015, pioneered a category of 10-minute delivery for customers who order by smartphone app, with riders fanning out from neighbourhood warehouses that stock essential groceries.
Imitators have mushroomed with Germany’s Flink, founded just six months ago, raising $240 million from investors on Friday and announcing a strategic partnership with the Rewe supermarket group.
“Our model and approach to ultrafast delivery is thriving and this latest round of funding further enables us to deliver our best-in-class service to new customers in Europe, the United States and beyond,” said Getir’s founder and CEO Nazim Salur.
The latest funding brings to the total Getir has raised from investors to almost $1 billion so far this year.
PANDEMIC TREND
Quick delivery grocery firms also including Weezy and Gorillas have grown explosively during the COVID-19 pandemic, as consumers avoid neighbourhood shops.
The startups say the wow factor of getting a delivery to the doorstep in less time that it might take to queue up at a store checkout on a busy day means their apps generate repeat business and positive online feedback.
Flink, which focuses on Germany, has set up more than 50 local hubs in its first four months of operation. It is opening a new hub every two days, putting over three million customers within reach.
The rapid growth has led to frictions with delivery riders, however, with some at Berlin-based Gorillas seeking to form a works council and demanding better pay and conditions.
Gorillas was also reported by Sifted, an FT tech publication, to be seeking up to $1 billion from investors at a valuation of $6 billion. As recently as March the company, which launched last year, raised 244 million euros ($295 million) at a valuation of more than $1 billion.
Gorillas criticised the attempt to form a workers’ council, saying that while it supported staff representation, some workers had been excluded from voting on the matter. It called the report on its funding plans speculation.
Getir’s Series D round, first reported by the Financial Times, was led by existing investors including Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital, joined by Silver Lake, DisruptAD and Mubadala Investment Company.
Mubadala, an arm of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, also invested in the Flink round, along with Dutch-based consumer internet investor Prosus and San Francisco technology investor BOND. ($1 = 0.8258 euros)
(Additional reporting by Douglas Busvine and Nadine Schimroszik in Berlin; Editing by Keith Weir)
