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Cathay’s Portfolio – European Unicorn! Abu Dhabi leads $167 million investment in Spanish delivery app Glovo

May 4, 2020
Europe

Article Source: CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/12/19/glovo-abu-dhabi-leads-167-million-investment-in-spanish-delivery-app.html

KEY POINTS
  • Spain’s Glovo says it has raised 150 million euros in a funding round led by Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala.
  • Glovo’s app is mostly known for food delivery, but it also offers other categories ranging from groceries to pharmaceuticals.
  • The extra cash will be used to help Glovo hire 300 new engineers and developers by mid-2020 and to expand into new territories.

Spanish food delivery app Glovo has raised 150 million euros ($167 million) in a fresh round of funding to ramp up hiring and expand internationally.

The financing effort was led by Mubadala, the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, and was also backed by existing investors including Germany’s Delivery Hero, Swiss investment company Drake Enterprises and European venture capital firm Lakestar, which was an early investor in Spotify.

It lifts four-year-old Glovo’s valuation across the $1 billion mark, bringing it into the ranks of Europe’s growing club of unicorn companies. The firm is now Spain’s second start-up to achieve unicorn status, according to CB Insights, the first being ride-hailing service Cabify. It speaks to the level of interest from foreign investors in Europe’s tech industry, which according to Atomico, had lured in over $34 billion in venture capital as of November this year.

The extra cash will be used to help Glovo grow its workforce, said co-founder and CEO Oscar Pierre, with plans to hire 300 new engineers and developers by mid-2020. The Barcelona-based firm also wants to use the additional capital to expand into new territories after entering Poland through the acquisition of local operator Pizza Portal. Glovo said that 40 engineers and 50 tech and product experts would be posted at its new Warsaw office.

Glovo’s platform is mostly known for its takeout and delivery service, but the firm also offers a range of other products that are delivered by its 50,000 couriers “on-demand” — typically in under 30 minutes. Food delivery has become a particularly crowded market, with a range of players looking to compete from DoorDash, Postmates and Uber Eats in the U.S. to Deliveroo and Just Eat in the U.K.

Click for the entire article: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/12/19/glovo-abu-dhabi-leads-167-million-investment-in-spanish-delivery-app.html