Grocery delivery service Gorillas is looking for new investors, writes German business magazine Manager Magazin. Millions are spent on growth each month, the magazine said, making early investors nervous.
Gorillas raised less than 250 million euros from lenders in March. This provided the Berlin-based company with a total value of more than $1 billion. That’s why it’s called unicorn, a term coined for startups from the tech world in particular that are worth a billion dollars or more. Founder Kagan Sommer promised “foolish growth,” but it’s not going as fast as expected. Meanwhile, Gorillas is aiming for an investment of roughly twice the size in a second round and a $6 billion valuation.
Gorillas is active in eighteen cities in Germany, the Netherlands, London and Paris. In those cities there are so-called “dark shops”, small distribution centers, for example, former store places from which delivery drivers on bicycles and scooters bring the ordered groceries to the customer within ten minutes.
However, competition in the new sector is fierce. For example, the German Flink and the Turkish Getir are also active in the Netherlands, just like Zapp from the UK. Elsewhere in Europe, companies such as Jiffy, Djia and Weezy are also active. In addition, existing delivery services such as Uber, Deliveroo and Just Eat Takeaway are increasingly focused on grocery delivery, but often in association with existing supermarkets.
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