Berlin-based e-commerce group Rocket Internet is moving aggressively towards a strong food delivery business consolidation. The company today announced that it has bought a 30% stake in FoodPanda rival Delivery Hero, for a staggering $586 Million.
In the process, Rocket Internet has also acquired 7 Asian startups for undisclosed amounts. The startups include India’s JUST EAT, Pakistan’s EatOye, Food Runner’s Room Service in Malaysia and Singapore, City Delivery (also Food Runner) in the Philippines, Koziness in Hong Kong and Food By Phone in Thailand
As a result of this consolidation process, Rocket Internet now has food delivery businesses in as many as 39 countries across the globe, with prime focus towards South and South-East Asia.
Rocket Internet is calling this combined entity by the name of “Global Online Takeaway Group” which comprises its self-backed FoodPanda and its newly acquired stake in Delivery Hero as well as La Nevera Roja and Pizzabo.
Detailing out its moves in a press-release, Rocket Internet says that it “identifies” Food and Groceries as the “next frontier” of e-commerce. Rocket furthermore announced that FoodPanda continues to make important investments to build market leading positions in several key markets.
Ralf Wenzel, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Foodpanda group said,
Foodpanda continues to build on its strategy of complementing organic growth with selective investments. Asia has been our first regional market and with these new acquisitions we have taken another big step ahead.
In India, foodpanda consolidated its market leading position by taking over JustEat’s India operations following the integration of the former Delivery Hero business TastyKhana in November 2014. It also acquired key competitors in a number of other Asian markets, which includes nascent markets like Pakistan too. As a result, foodpanda group now operates in more than 526 cities in 39 countries across 5 continents.
Apart from its FoodPanda consolidation, Rocket also announced a EUR 110 million funding round in HelloFresh together with existing shareholder Insight Venture Partners who contributed EUR 10 million. Rocket also acquired EUR 30 million in secondary shares making it the largest single Rocket investment ever.
HelloFresh claims a December run-rate of 21.7 million delivered meals and 172,000 active subscribers with annualized December 2014 net revenues of approximately EUR 120 million.
