Jiffy, a 10 month-old UK grocery delivery and dark store startup, has secured a $28 million Series A round. Coming after two funding rounds completed earlier this year, this capital injection brings to $35 million the total amount raised so far by the startup, as reported by TechCrunch.
Led by family-owned investment company Heartland, the round was supported by Baring Vostok, a top Western-managed PE/VC firm usually investing in Russia; the family office of the Bukhman brothers, who founded the gaming behemoth Playrix; Flint Capital, an international VC firm with Russian roots; LVL1, the investment vehicle of Vkontakte co-founder Lev Leviev; and two Ukrainian investors: TA Ventures and ICLUB VC.
Baring Vostok, LVL1 and TA Ventures were among the investors in the previous rounds. These also involved also Russian-born VC firm AddVenture, Ukrainian VC fund TA Ventures as well as KupiVIP founder Oskar Hartmann, I2BF Partner Alexander Levinsky and Dominique Pierre Locher.
Founded in November 2020, Jiffy delivers fresh products, meals and household essentials “in just 15 minutes” in several districts of the British capital.
With products sourced from local suppliers and popular brands at retail prices, the company uses what it calls “smart fulfillment centers” or “cloud stores,” which are “dedicated to serving the needs and are tailored to the tastes of local communities.”
A plethora of competitors
Jiffy told TechCrunch it has served “around 20,000 customers” so far across its six delivery zones. It currently has eight London dark stores, with plans to “cover London inside of the M4 by end of the year,” and further potentially other UK cities with 100,000+ population.
The company is headed by two experienced Russian entrepreneurs, Artur Shalamov and Vladimir Kholyaznikov. The previous was behind MixCart and MamaFood; the latter is an e-commerce veteran who made his name at the helm of flash sales platform KupiVIP. His latest project, Russian fresh delivery startup Foodza, shut down in early 2020.
Jiffy will measure itself against a plethora of local and international competitors. Among these are Getir, Gopuff, Gorillas, Weezy, and Zapp, as noted by TechCrunch.
Jiffy is among the first in a rising generation of Russian-founded express delivery companies seeking success in Western markets. Among them are Buyk in the US, Getfaster.io in Germany, FoodRocket in San Francisco and Fridge No More in New York City. Yango Deli, a Yandex subsidiary which already operates in Israel and France, has plans to launch in London, too.
