Grocery delivery startup Flink closes USD 750m Series B round

According to existing backer Cherry Ventures (which reinvested in this round, alongside all previous investors), the round values Flink at USD 2.85bn. Beside Cherry, Flink's previous backers include Mubadala Capital, Rewe, Prosus, Bond, Target Global, Northzone Ventures and TriplePoint Capital.

New investor DoorDash is a US-based food ordering and delivery platform. DoorDash claims it has a 56% market share in the US and serves 22 million customers. The listed business currently has a USD 54bn market cap.

The company has been growing at a remarkable pace, reaching and then comfortably exceeding unicorn status in just a year since inception. Flink, which was founded in December 2020, raised a USD 52m seed round in March this year – it was led by Target Global, joined by Cherry, Northzone, TriplePoint and Swedish VC Kinnevik's Cristina Stenbeck. Flink then raised a USD 240m Series A in June; Netherlands-based technology investor Prosus, US-headquartered Bond and Mubadala led the round.

Food and drink delivery and online supermarket startups have boomed amid the coronavirus lockdowns imposed across much of Europe since February 2020. 

Gorillas, a Germany-based grocery delivery startup, raised nearly USD 1bn in a Series C round led by food delivery platform Delivery Hero in October. The new funding was secured at a pre-money valuation of USD 2.1bn. It came just seven months after Gorillas raised USD 290m in its Series B.

Sponsors and VCs have invested across a range of deal sizes in the sector in the past year; notable investments include Czech online supermarket Rohlik.cz., UK-based Dija, Netherlands-based Crisp, and France-based grocery delivery service Cajoo.

Getir is another high-profile competitor – the Turkey-based developer of a groceries delivery app raised USD 550m in a Series D funding round co-led by Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global in June. The round also saw participation from Silver Lake, DisruptAD, and Mubadala. Getir has been attracting capital at a rapid pace, like Flink and Gorillas; the Series D reportedly led to the company's valuation tripling to around USD 7.6bn, and was preceded by a USD 300m Series C last March.

Company
Founded in December 2020 and headquartered in Berlin, Flink is a grocery delivery startup that claims to serve customers within 10 minutes of ordering, with users placing orders via its app. Flink now reaches 10 million customers across 60 cities in Germany, France, Austria, and the Netherlands; at the time of the Series A earlier this year, its customer base stood at three million people.

Flink employs 10,000 staff, including riders – who are fully employed with unlimited contracts, according to Cherry Ventures.

People
Flink – Oliver Merkel, Christoph Cordes, Julian Dames (founders).

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