Well that was quick. UK-based hyper fast grocery delivery startup Weezy — which only raised a pre-seed for its 15min delivery services of supermarket fare last year, after founding the biz in 2019 — has been bagged by Turkish 10min-delivery-app Getir.
It’s the latest slice of consolidation to hit Europe’s hyper competitive on-demand ‘quick commerce’ convenience shopping apps.
The value of the deal is not being announced but Weezy has raised over $25M per Crunchbase, including a $20M Series A this January — which was led by New York’s Left Lane Capital. Other investors include DN Capital, Heartcore Capital and angels, such as Chris Muhr, the Groupon founder, plus some former execs from the supermarket and on-demand food delivery sectors.
Getir, meanwhile, has been dialling up its attention on the UK market following its launch (in London), this January — announcing last month that it planned to invest around £100M (~$134M) in the country to establish a nationwide network of local stores (which it claimed would create “up to 10,000 new and permanent jobs”).
Presumably its acquisition of Weezy accounts for a chunk of that planned splurge — as it’ll be picking up the latter’s dark stores, which includes micro fulfilment centers in London, Manchester, Brighton and Bristol.
Back in January Weezy said it planned to open an additional 40 sites across the UK by the end of this year — in addition to two in London. While Getir’s own UK footprint prior to the acquisition stood at between 9 and 15 cities and towns — including Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool.
The Turkish on-demand giant isn’t short of funds to shop for rivals. This summer it topped up its war-chest by raising a further $555M in Series D funds from investors including Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital and Mubadala Investment Company — and has pulled in close to a billion in funding this year (and tripled its valuation to $7.5BN), per reports.
Today, Getir said its business — which was founded back in 2015, so long before the pandemic arrived to supercharge online grocery shopping — is now worth $7.7BN.
Commenting on the acquisition in a statement, Turancan Salur, Getir UK general manager said: “Teaming up with Weezy, which has quickly established itself across the UK, is an exciting opportunity and one that complements our people-first belief and business approach. We look forward to welcoming Weezy’s customers, employees and partners to the enlarged group.”
In another supporting statement, Weezy CEO and co-founder, Kristof Van Beveren, added: “We are incredibly excited to continue our journey in disrupting the skyrocketing ultrafast grocery market. Getir has an unparalleled track-record of achievements and experience with an equally ambitious team. Our alignment in purpose and culture is a winning formula for expansion globally and we will continue to deliver an exceptional offering to consumers in minutes.”
Germany rival Gorillas also grabbed almost $1BN in funding last month, announcing a Series C close. So startups which have raised relative peanuts raised are obvious targets for rapacious, better resourced and established rivals — whose goal is to beat the competition by scaling faster to win the market for instant groceries.
Weezy is not Getir’s first acquisition — this summer it picked up a small player in Southern Europe to expand into Spain and Italy. It has also recently (this month) kicked off a service in the US where it’s squaring up to major US rivals.
One of which, GoPuff, has also been on a European acquisition spree lately — starting with the UK market, where it’s been trying to muscle in on Getir’s territory, giving the latter added incentive to bulk up its own UK presence.
In all, Getir is now operating in nine countries (Turkey, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and the US) — offering app-based services including super speedy urban delivery of groceries from dark stores where it stocks some 2,000 “everyday items” that can be delivered day or night.
via https://www.aiupnow.com
Natasha Lomas, Khareem Sudlow
