Pictured: Will Shu, CEO and co-founder of Deliveroo
Deliveroo, the fast-growing on-demand service for high-quality restaurant meals, has raised US$70m in a Series C investment round led by Greenoaks Capital and Index Ventures as well as Accel and Dylan Collins’ Hoxton Ventures.
Deliveroo is an end-to-end food delivery service that brings high-quality local restaurant food to homes and offices via its proprietary technology and a small army of cyclists and scooter drivers.
The company has mushroomed to employ more than 300 drivers in the UK where it has more than 50,000 customers.
The company launched in Ireland in recent weeks and as a result food from restaurants like Carluccio’s, Brother Hubbard, Asador, Unicorn and Dillinger’s can be delivered in Dublin within an average time of 32 minutes.
Deliveroo previously secured US$25m (€22m) in a Series B funding from investors in January, including Accel Partners, Index Ventures and JamJar Ventures. Prior to the latest round, Demonware founder Dylan Collins had invested up to €3.5m in Deliveroo via his Hoxton Ventures vehicle.
Will Shu founded Deliveroo in London with Greg Orlowski in 2013 with the objective of allowing people to order from restaurants they love and get the food they love with accurate timing.
Meals, wheels and deals
The Deliveroo app, released in the UK earlier this month, topped the App Store’s food and drink chart and was named Best New App and Editor’s Choice in a matter of days.
Deliveroo will use the new funding to build on this success and is planning to expand into new markets in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, while continuing to roll out in its existing markets.
Speaking with Siliconrepublic.com, Shu said that the use of the new funding will be three-fold.
“Firstly international: we have excellent traction in London and we see the opportunity to take this model to further markets in western Europe as well as the Gulf states and Asia.
“The second part involves marketing. We have gotten to where we are today with very little marketing spend and we want to escalate this and put the company into the next gear in an aggressive and intelligent manner.
“The final part is people. We want to hire the best teams in the space we operate in and that will be in the areas of technology and design to improve on what we’ve done so far.”
Shu said that expectations vary between countries and cultures. “Our core product will require a lot of tweaks in terms of languages and payment providers but the mission remains the same: getting great food delivered to people in an elegant digital manner.”
He said the company is also looking at payment platforms like Apple Pay. “If at the end of the day you can make a consumer’s life easier, you are winning.”
He said that as well as western Europe, he sees enormous opportunities amongst ex-pats living in the Gulf states and he says Singapore and Hong Kong are compelling markets.
“As you know, our model involves hiring management in each and every market to ensure everything is to the right standard, so most of the hiring will be done internationally. But we will also need product and design people at HQ level,” Shu said.
