Today the LSE-listed Russian Internet group Mail.Ru Group announced the acquisition of food delivery startup ZakaZaka. This is an all-cash transaction which values ZakaZaka at $20 million. Signed on April 28, the deal is not subject to any third-party approvals.
With 2,600 connected restaurants and 126,000 orders in March 2017, ZakaZaka claims to be the number two player in the Russian food delivery market. Its revenues amounted to 56 million rubles in 2016 ($835,000 at the average exchange rate) and grew to 30 million rubles (a little more than $500,000) in the first quarter of this year.
ZakaZaka’s mobile app accounts for over 87% of total orders.
In November 2016, Mail.Ru Group announced the acquisition of Delivery Club, the market leader in Russia, previously owned by Rocket Internet’s Foodpanda. The company was fully acquired for $100 million in an all-cash transaction.
“[The acquisition of] Delivery Club proved to be a successful [move]: Delivery Club has displayed very significant growth in all operating metrics,” said Dmitry Grishin, Mail.Ru Group co-founder and Chairman of the Board.
Through this acquisition, Mail.Ru Group also got a minority stake in ZakaZaka, of which Delivery Club was a shareholder at that time. After increasing its stake to 9.91% in March 2017, the group is now acquiring the remaining 90.09%.
In December 2016, Mail.Ru Group took part in a $1.6 million round of funding for Instamart, a Moscow-based startup that organizes food deliveries from offline retail outlets.
Last year also saw the acquisition of a stake in ChefMarket.ru by Mitsui; and a $1 million funding round for Foodfox.ru. This round was led by Target Global, an international fund with Russian backers which had previously invested in related businesses Blue Apron, Delivery Hero and Lemoncat.
