The Russian food delivery startup Elementaree.ru has secured $2 million from several investors, including venture capitalists Ilya Ogai (UFG Private Equity) and Boris Zhilin (Avenir) and Veeam Software Senior VP Anton Antich.
The news was reported last week by Vedomosti, which cited exchanges with the startup and with these investors. The startup’s founder Olga Zinovyeva has kept a controlling stake in the company, according to the business daily, which did not get knowledge of other details of the deal.
In 2015 — nearly two years after inception — the startup received $300,000 from Boris Ryabov (Bright Capital) and Alexey Menn, then $500,000 last year from an undisclosed investor.
Elementaree currently serves Moscow and the surrounding region.
Among Elementaree’s main competitors in ChefMarket.ru, which has raised as much as $5 million in two rounds from Japanese Mitsui & Co., following investments from QIWI co-founder Andrey Romanenko and Russian venture fund AddVenture.
Hot meals, hot market
Currently valued at some 80 billion rubles (roughly $1.3 billion at the current exchange rate) annually, according to Delivery Club, the Russian food delivery market has attracted much investor attention recently.
The number one food delivery company in Russia, Delivery Club was acquired by Mail.Ru Group for $100 million in November 2015.
One month later, the LSE-listed group also invested in Instamart, a Moscow-based startup which organizes food deliveries from offline retail outlets; then it acquired the food delivery startup ZakaZaka.
Last year also saw Foodfox.ru complete a $1 million funding round. The round was led by Target Global, an international fund with Russian backers which had previously invested in Blue Apron, Delivery Hero and Lemoncat.
In July 2017 AddVenture, a Moscow-based fund which also invested in Chefmarket and Delivery Club at the early stage, invested $5 million in Grow Food.
