PIK Group, Russia’s largest residential property developer, has invested in the St Petersburg-based Samokat e-grocery service, Russian business daily RBC reported. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
According to official company registers, PIK acquired 27% of Samokat through its Cyprus- and Russia-based mother companies. Among Samokat’s other major shareholders are Vladislav Bocharov (24%) and Rodion Shishov (17%) who previously worked at Russian Post and Magnit, a large supermarket network in Russia.
The service claims to be able to deliver grocery orders within 15 to 45 minutes, depending on customer location. At present, there are more than 3,000 SKUs in Samokat’s assortment, which meets the common range of products available in brick-and-mortar vicinity stores. Orders are delivered by both couriers by foot, bikes and scooters. (‘Samokat’ means ‘scooter’ in Russian.)
Samokat works in Moscow and St Petersburg via a mobile app. As of June 25, 2019, its Android version had been installed on more than 10,000 devices.
According to RBC, in 2018, the e-grocery business (including online sale of groceries and ready-to-eat meals) accounted for 49.4 million rubles (roughly $783 million at the current exchange rate). Utkonos was the largest player in this segment, with 10.2 billion rubles (about $162 million) in revenues. The other key players on this market include Ozon with 3 billion rubles in revenues (about $47.9 million), Okey ($27 million) and Azbuka Vkusa ($24 million), iGooods ($19 million), Instamart ($12.8 million), and Golama ($6.4 million).
The e-grocery business has been on the rise in Russia, with both private and state investors investing in this segment. Earlier this month, the Tealsy online food products platform attracted an undisclosed amount from Baring Vostok, a major Moscow-based international PE firm. In June, e-grocery service Golama secured $7.7 million from a state investor just after one year of operations. In March, food delivery startup Instamart raised $7.6 million from Mail.ru Group and top businessmen.
That same month, PIK Group acquired the Moscow-based Kukhnya na Rayone food delivery service.
