The Russian food delivery service Samokat — which was acquired last year by Mail.ru Group and Sber — has plans to enter the US market. As reported by The Bell, which cites Samokat’s founder Vyacheslav Bocharov, the move could take place “in the next 12 months.”
The service could operate on American soil as a separate entity under the brand name of ‘Buyk’. However, neither the scale of the project nor the amount required to launch it have been determined yet, according to The Bell’s sources.
Bocharov said New York City could be the first city covered by the service as early as this summer. “In the US, [Samokat] will have a new name, but our aim to free people from the routine will remain as well as the real-time delivery retail technology that we created,” The Bell quoted the entrepreneur as saying.
“Today, Samokat operates in 18 Russian cities and continues to open 80 darkstores every month. We are growing fast and we know that we can do even more,” Bocharov added.
Fruits and vegetables delivered in 15 minutes in San Francisco
Another Russian entrepreneur, Vitaly Alexandrov, is developing his 15-minute delivery startup in San Francisco. In a fascinating interview with VC.RU, he shared his US story: “There was nothing like that in California before — neither in that state nor in the United States in general till October 2020 — while many Russians are accustomed to express delivery services like Yandex.Lavka and Samokat.”
“Few people undertook to implement such a business model: [to reduce the risks], they mostly did it in the segment of alcohol or snacks, but not dared to do so in a larger segment that would include fruits, vegetables, milk and other perishable products.”
“These kinds of products are very difficult to manage: they have a small shelf life, which can lead to large write-offs and , as a result, large losses. Therefore, probably, no one undertook to combine the trade in perishable goods and fast delivery in one service,” Alexandrov said.
Now Food Rocket employs 45 people, including around 30 Russian programmers and product managers. The other 30% of the team are Americans: among them is Jerrin James, a former Amazon executive who became a co-founder of Food Rocket.
Earlier this spring, Food Rocket raised $2 million from Russian or Russia-connected investors. These included Baring Vostok — the American-managed Russian PE/VC giant, — AltaIR Capital, the AngelsDeck angel club, Moscow-based fund IIDF (FRII), and Artur Shamalov, a Russian entrepreneur who launched a similar express-delivery service in London.
“Russian companies have pioneered a new model for food delivery: after Samokat and Yandex.Lavka launched their 15 minute-service in Moscow, Russian entrepreneurs started opening similar ventures in the US, the UK and Europe,” said AltaIR Capital founder Igor Ryabenkiy in a recent exchange with East-West Digital News.
Among these Russian-founded food delivery services operating internationally is also Fridge No More, which serves clients in several areas of New York City, and recently secured more than $15 million from top US investment firm Insight Partners. Other examples include Jiffy, the London company founded by Shamalov, and Yandex’s Yango Deli: already operating in Israel, this company has established a branch in France and prepares to do so in the UK.
Another entrepreneur from Russia established in California, Alex Vasilkin, has developed a last-mile delivery management solution. His startup, dubbed Cartwheel, helps businesses launch in-house delivery or upgrade their third-party delivery infrastructure. Last month Cartwheel raised $1 million from Portillo, as reported by Restaurant Business, following a successful experience with this restaurant chain as a solution provider.
An adapted version of this story appeared in The Moscow Times. Previous EWDN stories provided in-depth coverage of Samokat, Jiffy and Yandex Deli.
