Spain-based last-mile on-demand delivery service Glovo closed a funding round amounting to €115m ($134m), which valued it at $348m. The transaction featured corporate investors such as e-commerce firm Rakuten and restaurant group AmRest, alongside traditional venture investors like venture capital funds Seaya Ventures and growth equity firms Idinvest Partners and GR Capital. AmRest reportedly committed $29m of the total. Rakuten is a returning investor, as it had backed Glovo’s previous $35m series B round in 2017.
Founded 2014, Glovo runs a network of local couriers it calls Glovers to provide a rapid on-demand delivery service for food and consumer items on behalf of local businesses. Glovo is currently available in about 60 cities across 17 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The company intends to use the new capital to fund further international growth and hire some 100 engineers.
Despite having been hit hard by the global financial crisis, Spain boasts a relatively vibrant and dynamic startup ecosystem. It was not until 2016, however, when we began to track more deals raised by Spanish startups featuring corporate players in the syndicates, as the GCV Analytics historical bar chart here illustrates. During the first half of 2018, we tracked 9 such deals totalling an estimated $220m and this pace will likely be kept by the end of the year.
Glovo forms part of the broader delivery services and tech space. Corporate-backed deals in that space have been somewhat fluctuating in recent years, as shown on the other bar chart, and appear to be set for a slowdown in 2018.
