Food delivery service DoorDash has led a $750m series B round for Germany-based grocery ordering app operator Flink, TechCrunch reported today, one of the wave of companies in the sector moving into corporate venturing.
Abu Dhabi state-owned investment vehicle Mubadala Capital and unnamed new and returning backers also took part in the round, which valued Flink at $2.85bn post-money. It also included debt financing from unnamed entities.
Founded in late 2020, Flink has built an online platform that allows users to buy grocery items for delivery within 10 minutes. It operates in some 60 cities across its home country, Austria, the Netherlands and France.
Bloomberg first reported the involvement of DoorDash, which went public in a $3.37bn initial public offering in December 2020, in the round in Septmber this year when its investment closed. It has been looking to back delivery startups in Europe such as Germany and the UK, sources privy to the matter told TechCrunch.
The corporate, which has a market capitalisation of about $57bn, had been in talks to invest in Flink’s peer Gorillas – which is also based in Germany – but the deal did not go through after they failed to agree on expansion plans, according to Bloomberg.
Gorillas ultimately received $1bn in a series C round led by DoorDash peer Delivery Hero two months after the discussions. Delivery Hero has made a series of venture capital investments in 2021, backing social commerce marketplace Facily and delivery robot developer Serve Robotics in the past month alone.
Flink and Gorillas were also exploring a merger that did not materialise, the Financial Times reported in September. An investor said the development resembled “a movie” while another delivery app executive told FT he had “never seen such a wild party,” adding: “It is insane, it is beyond anybody’s imagination. Everybody is talking to everybody.”
A case in point is Flink’s attempt to buy France-based on-demand delivery startup Cajoo, according to TechCrunch, before the latter ended up raising $40m in a round led by supermarket group Carrefour in September 2021.
E-commerce and cloud technology group Amazon and another grocery delivery platform, Gopuff, had likewise pitched merger and acquisition offers to Flink that did not come to fruition. TechCrunch speculated it was because the company was either too expensive or was not keen on selling.
India-headquartered food delivery service Zomato is another corporate investor in the space, having most recently provided a combined $175m for shipping service Shiprocket, retail deal aggregator Magicpin and fitness booking platform developer CureFit last month. It is set to invest $1bn in venture capital deals in the next two years, according to TechCrunch.
Internet group Prosus, VC firm Bond and Mubadala Capital had co-led a $240m series A round for Flink in June this year at a valuation below $1bn while supermarket group Rewe was identified as a previous backer.
Flink had received $12.2m from Cherry Ventures and Northzone in a January 2021 pre-seed round, after which they both backed a $52m round led by Target Global two months later that also featured debt financing from TriplePoint Capital.
Rewe CEO Lionel Souque said: “Flink is on a dynamic growth track, which Rewe Group is supporting with its long-term commitment. This also includes the operational cooperation between Flink and Rewe in the area of purchasing, which continues to develop very positively.
“Our decision to partner Flink in April of this year has proven to be successful; Flink is now the number one in quick commerce in Germany and is ideally placed to further expand their market leadership.”
Prabir Adarkar, chief financial officer of DoorDash, added: “We have been impressed by Flink’s growth and customer retention. [Flink founders and its] team share our operator mindset and bring a wealth of industry experience. It is not surprising that in less than a year of operating they have established themselves as the leader in key European markets.”
Image courtesy of Flink SE.
