By Matt Gallagher, Red Herring
Though many in the online food delivery space find themselves stuck in the rush hour of tech, Delivery Hero landed a decent funding round recently from the investor of an online food ordering rival. The $30 million Series D was led by Phenomen Ventures, a new Russian VC firm that also invested in Delivery Hero’s rival Foodpanda, which too shares a cut in the online orders it generates through the web and mobile apps.
The round follows a $50 million round Delivery Hero scored about a year ago from Kite Ventures.
Founded two years ago and headquartered in Berlin, Delivery Hero provides an online food ordering platform in over 14 countries, primarily in Europe but also Australia, South Korea, China, India and Mexico.
The latest round “takes us beyond profitability,” Delivery Hero CEO Niklas Östberg told Red Herring in an email. “It’s primarily for technology and strengthening of our existing markets further.”
Orders have been ringing off the hook with 100 percent revenue increases over the past year, Östberg told Red Herring. The 600-employee company claims over $400 million in turnover. It holds the top market spot in Sweden, Austria, Finland, Germany, Poland and Mexico.
“A clear reason to our growth is that we spent a lot of money to build an outstanding product to our customers,” Östberg said.
Östberg stated there is no connection between Delivery Hero and its rival Foodpanda, also a Phenomen Ventures investment. “There is a big difference in markets and size. Glad to see Phenomen investing into us and not Foodpanda,” Östberg said.
With this latest round, Delivery Hero has raised $116 million in venture investment as well as $10 million in debt. In addition to Phenomen Ventures, this latest round had participation from existing investors Team Europe, Kite Ventures, ru-Net, Tengelmann Ventures, Holtzbrinck Ventures, Point Nine Capital and Kreos Capital.
“There is a constant drive towards improving our customer experience further and promote our product to a wider group,” Östberg concluded. “This is our key focus.”
Delivery Hero was a winner of the Red Herring Europe 100 award last April.