Deliveroo announced this week it has raised over $180 million in Series H funding from existing investors. The round was led by Durable Capital Partners LP and Fidelity Management and Research Company LLC. With it, Deliveroo is now valued at over $7 billion, according to an official company statement.
The new funds come ahead of Deliveroo’s initial public offering, which is expected to happen in the next few months.
The London, U.K.-based company said it would use the new funds to “further drive growth and enhancements to its services for restaurants, riders and consumers.” Examples of those areas include expanding Editions, Deliveroo’s delivery-only kitchen sites, expanding its grocery delivery service, and expanding its Plus subscription service. The company also said it would offer more restaurants its Signature service, which lets customers order via a restaurant’s own website.
It’s a shift from several months ago, when Deliveroo had to cut 15 percent of its staff in response to the pandemic. Also around that time, U.K. regulatory watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority approved Amazon’s highly scrutinized investment into Deliveroo, saying the delivery business could collapse without the funds.
But, like other third-party delivery services around the world, Deliveroo has wound up faring very well so far throughout the pandemic. Will Shu, Deliveroo’s founder, told The Guardian in December that COVID-19 had “accelerated consumer adoption of food delivery services by about two or three years,” and that order volumes for the service in the U.K. and Ireland were double those of 2019. In the same interview, Shu also said his company had been profitable “at the operating level” for about six months.
Currently, Deliveroo operates in 12 countries, including a number of Western European nations as well as Singapore, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates. Its main competitor, Just Eat Takeaway.com, operates in many of the same markets.
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