VC-backed HelloFresh mulling IPO

José Rojo
06 August 2015

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HelloFresh, a Berlin-headquartered meal kit delivery business backed by VC firms Rocket Internet and Insight Venture Partners, is reportedly targeting an IPO before year-end.

Representatives from Rocket Internet and HelloFresh declined to comment on the IPO scenario. However, according to Bloomberg, the process is already underway, as the company's shareholders have considered Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as potential advisers for the listing.

Founded in 2011, Berlin-headquartered HelloFresh is a catering company providing weekly meal kits with recipes and ingredients to customers. In December 2014, the business reported a total of 21.7 million meals had been delivered to its 172,000-strong subscriber base in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, the US and Australia.

With €120m in revenues in 2014, HelloFresh is currently owned by German VC houses Rocket Internet and Vorwerk Ventures, as well as New York-headquartered Insight Venture Partners and Russian firm Phenomen Ventures. The VCs variously joined the ownership group over the last five increasingly large fundraising rounds.

According to unquote" data, the first injection took place in July 2012, when venture capitalist Holtzbrinck Ventures became a shareholder. Six months later, the firm was joined by Vorwerk as they both deployed a combined €7.69m in a series-B round for HelloFresh.

In September 2013, the duo joined forces with Phenomen during a $7.5m series-C led by the latter. At the time, it was revealed HelloFresh had raised $20m since inception.

In 2014, the company welcomed new US backer Insight during a $50m series-D round in August. This was followed by the exit of Holtzbrinck in December that year; the VC exited its stake in the company alongside six other e-commerce businesses to Rocket Internet in return for a 2.5% shareholding in Rocket itself.

HelloFresh received its latest injection to date in February 2015, when Insight and Rocket invested a combined €110m. The former contributed €10m for the series-E, whereas the latter deployed €100m, while also purchasing a further €30m in secondary shares and increasing its stake to 51.7%. According to unquote" data, the company's enterprise value shot up from €131.2m to €623.8m after the transaction.