Glovo, a Barcelona, Spain-based on-demand delivery startup, secured €150m in Series E funding.
The round, which was led by Mubadala with further support from previous investors Drake Enterprises, Idinvest and Lakestar, allowed the company to reach the unicorn status surpassing a $1 billion valuation.
Glovo intends to use the funds to consolidate its position in the market as it moves towards profitability, expand its tech team, continue to strengthen its tech offering by further streamlining its user experience, reducing the waiting time for couriers and customers, and opening new dark stores and cook rooms.
Led by Oscar Pierre, Co-founder and CEO, Glovo allows people to buy, collect and send any product within the same city at a time, in under an hour. It has more than 1.8 million monthly active users and 25,000 associated partners. The company operates in 288 cities across 26 countries, including EEMEA, LATAM, and most recently in Sub-Saharan Africa. Glovo currently employs over 1,500 people globally, with 600+ in the Barcelona HQ, and over 50,000 active Glovers which make money from the platform.
The company recently entered the Polish market, acquiring Pizza Portal in a €35m deal, and investing in a second technology hub in Warsaw. It plans to expand its global tech team by hiring 300 additional engineers by mid-2020, with 40 dedicated engineers and 50 tech and product experts to be based in its new Warsaw office.
Glovo will continue to innovate in the delivery sector and build out its multi-category offerings, delivering beverages, pharmaceutical products and other everyday items. To keep on growing its groceries category, Glovo will continue to seek strategic partnerships, similar to its deal with Carrefour, and invest in its own dark supermarkets.
The company currently operates seven dark stores in Europe and Latin America — with locations in Barcelona, Madrid, Buenos Aires and Lima — and plans to open 100 by 2021.
FinSMEs
19/12/2019