Over the weekend, the Berlin-based food delivery giant Delivery Hero announced the acquisition of emerging markets online food delivery company foodpanda – a venture of Rocket Internet. In exchange for all its shares in foodpanda, Rocket Internet received newly issued shares in Delivery Hero increasing its stake in Delivery Hero to 37.7%. Delivery Hero, foodpanda and Rocket Internet are all three headquartered in Berlin. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close prior to December 31, 2016.
The acquisition strengthens Delivery Hero’s global leadership position in online food ordering and delivery, with the combined group processing over 20 million orders per month across 47 countries. foodpanda operates in total in 22 countries with market leading positions in 17 of them. The acquisition of foodpanda will enable Delivery Hero to consolidate its market leadership position in the Middle East and adds 20 new countries in Eastern Europe, MENA and Asia to Delivery Hero’s platform increasing the size of Delivery Hero’s total addressable market. Furthermore, the combination of the two key companies leads to a significant reduction of complexity at group level for Rocket Internet.
A few weeks earlier, foodpanda already sold its Russian business for about $100 million to the to Mail.Ru Group.
Oliver Samwer, Rocket Internet´s CEO stated: „The combination of foodpanda and Delivery Hero, one of our most important companies, further consolidates key markets resulting in significantly improved market positions. Delivery Hero is also acquiring new markets with leading market positions further broadening its geographic footprint.“
Niklas Östberg, Delivery Hero´s CEO commented: “foodpanda has built a fantastic position and service offering in some of the largest food delivery markets globally. We look forward to working with the team to continue creating unparalleled takeaway experiences for our customers around the world.”
During its previous funding round, Delivery Hero already was valued at more than $3 billion. There are also rumours that The Berlin-based company might do an IPO in 2017.
