SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Foodpanda, an
online take-away food delivery company active in dozens
of emerging markets, said it had raised $60 million in
new financing from a group of investors including
existing backer Rocket Internet AG.
Foodpanda, one of a stable of ecommerce and financial services
ventures created by Berlin-based Rocket Internet, is in a global
race to stake out the highly local food take-away market, an online
segment that has featured two high-profile share listings this year
and big investments by U.S. and European venture firms.
The latest financing marks the third sizeable round of investment
for foodpanda, which has raised a little over $100 million since it
was founded in 2012, said Ralf Wenzel, co-founder and chief
executive of foodpanda.
Added funding will help foodpanda deepen penetration of its existing
Asian, African, Eastern European, Middle Eastern and Latin American
markets before a variety of publicly traded or otherwise well
financed rivals can enter them.
Major players in the online food take-away ordering business include
publicly listed GrubHub, which has popularized the category since
its founding in 2004 and now offers menus from 250,000 restaurants
in 500 U.S. cities.
Just-Eat, London's biggest technology listing in recent years, is
the dominant online food delivery player in Britain and Denmark,
where it was founded in 2001, but it has less of a presence to date
in eight other European markets and Brazil and India, where it has
also set up shop.
In much of Europe, the largest player is Berlin-based Delivery Hero,
founded in 2011, which is active in 20 markets across five
continents and has raised $285 million in funding to date. It counts
60,000 restaurants as customers from Germany to Latin America to
China and India.
501 CITIES, OVER 30,000 RESTAURANTS
Foodpanda operates under the hellofood brand in Latin America,
Africa and the Middle East and as foodpanda in Asia, Eastern Europe
and some Commonwealth of Independent States countries.
Recently, foodpanda acquired Russian rival DeliveryClub for
undisclosed terms. It continues to operate as DeliveryClub in 19
Russian cities.
In total, foodpanda's three brands operate in 501 cities in 40
countries (http://www.foodpanda.com/). It is run by a central team
based in Berlin, which develops the technology and marketing for
country managers to run local sales.
It counts as clients more than 30,000 restaurants - small shops and
big chains such as 7-11 and Yum Brands' KFC - which pay a commission
on each order processed by foodpanda units. Delivery is free to
dining customers.
Berlin-based Rocket Internet is bidding to create the largest
internet empire outside the United States and China, seeking to
replicate the success of Amazon and Alibaba in markets from Africa
to Latin America and Russia.
Active in 100 countries in everything from online shopping to taxi
bookings to financial services, Rocket Internet plans an initial
public offering later this year that could value it at 3 billion to
5 billion euros ($4 billion-$6.7 billion).
Falcon Edge Management, a New York-based global hedge fund launched
in 2012 with $1.2 billion in assets, is another major backer of
foodpanda and contributed to its latest financing round.
In 2013, foodpanda secured more than $20 million in funding from
Phenomen Ventures and Investment AB Kinnevik, and $8 million from
iMENA Holdings. It received $20 million from a group of investors,
including Phenomen, in February of 2014.
