Participated · Series C · Jul 2018

Glovo is a Barcelona-based multi-category delivery service and unicorn operating an on-demand platform. The company is focusing on Q-Commerce (quick commerce) and currently runs dark stores in Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon and Milan, with plans for Valencia, Rome, Porto and Bucharest. Glovo reports about 10 million users and has deals with supermarkets including Carrefour, Continente, and Kaufland. It announced a €100 million partnership with Stoneweg to expand its dark-store network and recently appointed Narek Verdian to develop dark-store technology. The firm plans to use new funding to expand in its existing 20 markets and accelerate its Q-Commerce division. Competition from Gorillas and Dija in ultra-fast grocery delivery is cited as a market force driving Glovo's strategy. The company aims to reach 200 dark stores by the end of 2021. Glovo is an app founded in Barcelona in 2015 by Óscar Pierre and Sacha Michaud that enables users to buy, collect and send products on demand within the same city. The company operates darkstores in Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon and Milan to serve Glovo Market and partners with supermarket chains (DIA, Carrefour, Alcampo, Continente, Biedronka, Kaufland) and retailers (Douglas, Clarel, El Corte Inglés, La Casa del Libro, Tiger). Glovo has invested in building owned infrastructure to enable deliveries in under 30 minutes and positions itself in the Q-commerce segment. The company planned to expand its darkstore footprint from 18 to 100 locations globally in 2021, naming cities such as Seville, Valencia, Zaragoza and Porto as targets. Financially, Stoneweg announced a €100M investment to accelerate international growth and the build-out of ultrafast delivery operations across several European markets. Glovo operates an on-demand delivery platform that promises city deliveries of food, groceries, pharmaceuticals and other items, often aiming for very fast (15–30 minute) service. The company currently operates in 26 markets and employs 1,500+ staff, supported by thousands of self-employed couriers; it expects to handle more than 100M (possibly up to ~200M) orders next year. Glovo is focusing product and operations on groceries (its second-biggest category), courier services and expanding its dark-store footprint, with around seven cities currently running dark stores and plans to open over 100 more. The company plans to hire roughly 300 additional engineers by mid-2020, building on ~150 developers in Barcelona and a new tech hub in Warsaw. Financially, Glovo closed a €150M Series E and has previously raised a €150M Series D and a $134M Series C; total capital raised since its 2015 founding is about $488M and the latest round pushed its valuation past $1BN. Management says the Series E will be used to push the business to profitability (targeted in early 2021) while slowing some geographic expansion to deepen market density and margins. Glovo operates a ‘shop on your behalf’ on-demand marketplace that promises delivery of food, groceries, pharmaceuticals and other items within minutes via independent couriers. The app serves more than 5.5 million unique users and works with about 16,000 partners across 124 cities in 21 countries. The platform has roughly 35,000 active couriers (“Glovers”) and employs over 1,000 people, including a >400-person Barcelona HQ team. Today more than 70% of Glovo’s business is food, with groceries, courier and pharmacy making up the remainder. The company is investing in technology and hiring — including a recent VP of engineering hire from Uber — to improve dispatching, delivery efficiency and its mobile product. Glovo plans to expand global growth and innovate around on-demand groceries by building “darkstores” (urban micro-fulfillment centers) that it is already piloting in Barcelona and Madrid. Management intends to grow the tech and data team to over 300 engineers in the next 18 months to support these initiatives. Glovo operates an on-demand delivery platform that connects app users with gig-economy couriers to pick up and deliver food, groceries and other purchases. The startup was founded in Barcelona in 2015 and its app is available in 61 cities across 17 countries, with Spain alone accounting for operations in 21 cities. The company says it opened six countries and 20 cities in three months and is focusing expansion on Latin America and EMEA. Glovo plans to use new funding to optimize its platform and tech resources, and to improve service for riders, users and partner stores. It intends to grow its technology team by adding more than 100 engineers to become a major technology hub in Southern Europe. The business faces regulatory and competitive risks in the gig-economy and food-delivery spaces, which it is partially hedging by expanding in Latin America.