![]() In May 2020, it raised €100m in a round led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity. Last time Wolt raised capital, the team’s motivations were very different. “It was more us thinking, how can we optimise the next three to five years ahead?” “When we started raising this round, we had no view into what the competition was doing,” says Kuusi, who went out to raise late in October. ![]() And Turkish speedy delivery startup Getir is reported to also be raising capital, and expanding into new markets, including London. Along with Glovo’s $100m deal with real estate platform Stoneweg to open 100 dark stores (with Glovo managing delivery operations, and Stoneweg building and refurbishing the stores), Deliveroo also raised $180m and hit a $7bn valuation. Wolt’s latest fundraising comes amid a flurry of activity in the delivery sector. “The reason we’re also working on dark stores ourselves is to develop the tech - and because it’s sometimes not the quickest thing to work with partners.” Why raise now? Wolt is still opening some of its own dark stores, however - if only to figure out how to make them work best. There’s more flexibility on timings and the average order value tends to be far higher. Iconiq was joined by Tiger Global, Goldman Sachs Growth Equity and more than a half-dozen other institutional investors.That means that, although Wolt takes less commission on these ‘big basket’ orders than it does on restaurant food delivery (which is north of 20%), it’s a good line of business. The round Wolt announced today was led by Iconiq Growth. The startup reportedly started preparing for an initial public offering after its previous $100 million round last year and is now looking to hire a chief financial officer to oversee the effort. DoorDash, for instance, disclosed in the paperwork for its initial public offering last year that it was experimenting with drone delivery.Ī stock market listing is on Wolt’s roadmap as well. The extra funding should also allow Wolt to expand its engineering operations as rivals invest in new technologies to differentiate their services. The startup is both partnering with established grocery store chains and setting up its own “dark stores,” retail locations focused specifically on online orders. Wolt’s long-term plans include expanding to other areas besides the restaurant segment, most notably grocery delivery. Wolt Chief Executive Miki Kuusi said in a statement today that “we operate in an extremely competitive and well-funded industry, and this round allows us to have a long-term mindset when it comes to doubling down on our different markets.” One of the highest-profile examples is Uber, whose Eats unit in August reported higher revenue than its ride-hailing business for the first time. ![]() Several of Wolt’s rivals also saw delivery orders surge in 2020 thanks to demand from consumers opting to do their shopping online during the pandemic. ![]() īesides DoorDash, Wolt competes with Uber Inc.’s Uber Eats unit, GrubHub Inc. That’s a comparatively small loss for a startup competing in the highly competitive food delivery market, where much larger players have struggled to achieve profitability. Wolt disclosed today that it closed 2020 just $38 million in the red. Wolt says that its revenues tripled in 2020 on a year-over-year basis, to about $330 million.Īnother detail that likely caught investors’ attention is that the startup has managed to limit losses despite its rapid top-line growth. The startup claims more than 10 million users in 23 countries to whom it delivers restaurant orders with the help of more than 50,000 couriers. but has a substantial presence in the food delivery market. Wolt isn’t as well-known as rivals such as publicly traded Deliveroo Inc. Helsinki, Finland-based food delivery startup Wolt Enterprises Oy today announced that it has raised an additional $530 million from investors, less than a year after closing its previous $100 million funding round.
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