With more than $1 billion in total funding, the Berlin-based online food ordering giant Delivery Hero is clearly one of the “best”-funded European startups out there. The only problem seems to be that after raising this huge amounts of money, the young company is still hungry for further and further funds.
According to the German business publication manager magazin, Delivery Hero agreed to an unfavorable credit contract for more than €30 million. The article further suggests that Delivery Hero did so after the management team was unable to acquire further venture capital.
According to interview statements made by the Delivery Hero CEO Niklas Östberg earlier this year, the company might be ready for an IPO in the beginning of 2017.
Shortly after the manager magazin published its article claiming financial difficulties at Delivery Hero, the food ordering giant released a business update for the first half of 2016. The update states that with more than 83 million processed orders in H1/2016 Delivery Hero is the global leader in online food ordering.
Growth also seems to be intact. According to Delivery Hero, the number of processed orders in H1/2016 grew organically by 45% compared to H1/2015. This positive trend continued in July with an organic year-over-year order growth of 55%. The company stated that this was its fastest organic growth as a group since 2013. Deliver Hero’s revenues during the first half of 2016 grew by 53%.
In addition to these growth numbers, Delivery Hero announced that its core business is already operating profitably. At the same time, the young company continues to invest heavily into its premium brand Foodora, which is competing with other food delivery giants like Deliveroo. According to Delivery Hero, Foodora’s growth continues to be extremely fast and the brands financial development also remains above plan.
In order to further fund the fast growth of Foodora, Delivery Hero stated that it had raised some additional capital. In contrast to the article by manager magazin, Delivery Hero claims that the capital was raised with very good conditions.
Delivery Hero also maintains a very positive growth outlook for the rest of the year. Especially the strong position in very attractive regions drives the continuous fast growth of the group. The Turkish subsidiary Yemeksepeti, for example, continues to grow above plan and is reaching the threshold of 4 million processed orders per month. Delivery Hero was founded in 2011 and is active in 33 countries.
