VCs in $240m round for Flink

The company, which was founded in December 2020, also announced a partnership with Rewe as part of its latest funding round, in which the German supermarket chain has also participated.

Flink said in a statement that it intends to put the fresh funding towards its continued growth, and that it is expanding its product range on a weekly basis.

Grocery delivery startups that have seen significant growth during the coronavirus pandemic include Germany-bases Gorillas: the company was also founded in 2020 and raised around $40m that year, followed by a $290m round led by Digital Sky Technologies and Coatue Management in March 2021. Beyond Germany, similar businesses include Italy-headquartered Everli, which was founded in 2014 and raised a $100m round led by Verlinvest in March 2021.

Flink's latest round round follows several mega-rounds already announced in Germany in June 2021. Bus and rail transportation company FlixMobility and digital startup Wefox each raised $650m this week; while process-mining software Celonis, which is headquartered in Germany and the US, announced a $1bn round at an $11bn valuation.

VC investors that these companies have in common include Cherry Ventures, which has invested in both FlixMobility and Flink, as well as Target Global and Mubadala Capital, which have both invested in Wefox and Flink.

DACH venture capital value and deal volume is already on track to exceed the aggregate figures seen for 2019 and 2020 if the market continues at its current pace; 263 deals totalling almost €5.7bn have been completed in 2021 to date, according to Unquote Data. In 2020, 599 deals totalling €7.9bn were recorded, compared with 446 deals with an aggregate value of €8.8bn in 2019.

Previous funding
In March 2021, Target Global led a $52m seed round for Flink, joined by Cherry Ventures, Northzone Ventures, TriplePoint Ventures and Swedish VC Kinnevik's Cristina Stenbeck.

Company
Founded in December 2020 and headquartered in Berlin, Flink is a grocery delivery startup that claims to deliver groceries to customers in 10 minutes, with users placing orders via its app. Flink offers more than 2,400 different products and has reached three million customers, according to a statement. The company currently operates in 25 towns and cities in Germany and the Netherlands, according to its website, including Berlin, Amsterdam and Munich.

People
Cherry Ventures – Christian Meermann (founding partner).
Northzone Ventures – Jessica Schultz (general partner).
Target Global – Ben Kaminski (partner).
Mubadala Capital – Amer Alaily (senior principal).
Bond – Daegwon Chae (general partner).
Prosus – Larry Illg (CEO of food delivery).
Flink – Oliver Merkel, Christoph Cordes, Julian Dames (founder).

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• Topics
• Expansion
• DACH
• Consumer
• Technology
• Venture
• Germany
• Northzone