Rocket Internet’s online food delivery platform Foodpanda, together with its affiliated brand Hellofood, announced yesterday that it has taken over Russia’s food delivery business Delivery Club.
The size of the transaction has not been disclosed, but an insider told Russian business daily Vedomosti that it stood at around $50 million.
A major food delivery marketplace, Foodpanda launched on the Russian market in early 2013 – along with 11 other countries from Brazil, to Hungary, to the Ivory Coast. According to AddVenture’s Sergey Karpov, Foodpanda decided to acquire the Russian project after it failed to gain a significant market share in a sector dominated by Delivery Club.
With the acquisition of Delivery Club, Foodpanda Russia has become “the market-leading food delivery marketplace in Russia, serving customers across the entire CIS region,” stated Ralf Wenzel, co-founder and Global Managing Director of Foodpanda/Hellofood.
The company claims that its food selection is now “the broadest in Russia,” with access to over 2,500 partnering delivery restaurants via web and mobile platforms.
Delivery Club raised $400,000 in 2009, followed by $1 million from AddVenture and prominent Russian businessmen in 2011, and another $4 million in a round led by AddVenture in October 2012.
The Russian startup completed its fourth round of financing in December 2013, with $8 million secured from Phenomen Ventures – which also invested in Foodpanda – as well as from existing investors AddVenture and Guard Capital.
According to AddVenture founder and managing partner Maxim Medvedev, the fund has made a “huge profit”. Rusbase quoted him as saying that the fund had “bought itself” with the deal.
