Apparently investors have been shopping for online grocery startups, as there was a spate of funding news in the sector across North America and Europe over the last 12 hours.
Grocery delivery service Instacart raised another $265 million from existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC, and T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. This brings the total amount raised by Instacart to roughly $2.6 billion and values the company at $39 billion.
Over in the Czech Republic, online grocer Rohlik raised €190 million (~$230 million USD) in a round led by Partech with participation from Index Ventures, the EBRD, Quadrille Capital, J&T Bank, R2G, and Enern. According to TechCrunch, Rohlik offers items that it buys itself wholesale, as well as offering goods in concert with existing retailers. The company will use the funds to expand across its existing service areas (the Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria) and into new markets (Germany, Poland, Romania).
In the Netherlands, Dutch grocer Crisp announced that it has raised a €30 million (~$36 million USD) Series B round of funding led by Target Global with participation from Keen Venture Partners and others. EU-Startups reports that Crisp offers fresh seasonal ingredients sourced locally and delivered in one hour across the Netherlands. This brings the total amount raised by Crisp to €46 million (~$55 million USD) since 2018.
And finally, German delivery-only grocer Flink announced that it has raised $52 million in seed funding. TechCrunch writes that Target Global led this funding as well, along with participation from Northzone Cherry Ventures and TriplePoint Capital. This brings the total amount raised by Flink to $64 million, as the company is expanding beyond Germany and into France and the Netherlands.
Investment in the online grocery space has been frothy since the start of the year. In the U.K., Weezy raised $20 million. Here in the U.S., Good Eggs raised $100 million and Imperfect Foods raised $110 million. But all these deals pale next to Chinese grocery app Xingsheng Youxuan, which raised $2 billion.
Why so much money? Partly it’s because the pandemic and limited trips outside our homes pushed people into record amounts of online grocery shopping last year. But as we’re a year into this pandemic, new habits around online grocery have formed. In the month of January, U.S. consumers spent $9.3 billion on grocery e-commerce, and online sales of food and beverages is projected to hit $143 billion by 2025. In other words, the market for online grocery markets is looking pretty super right now.
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