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Spanish start-up Glovo raises €450 million

Published on April 09, 2021 - 2 mins reading time
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Launched in 2014, delivery start-up Glovo now has 10 million users in some twenty countries. It has just raised €450 million in funding, an amount that should enable it to continue its expansion.

Spanish start-up raises record funds

With €450 million raised from investors including investment bank GP Bullhound, Delivery Hero, Luxor Capital Group and Lugard Road Capital, Glovo has just completed the largest fund-raising in history for a Spanish start-up, with an estimated valuation of around €2 billion.

Launched in 2014 by Oscar Pierre and Sacha Michaud, Glovo has become, after VTC company Cabify, the second Spanish start-up to qualify as a " unicorn", this term referring to start-ups valued at over $1 billion.

Initially specializing in meal delivery, Glovo quickly diversified its services and today delivers flowers, groceries, gifts, clothing and many other products to 10 million users in 26 countries.

In 2019, it achieved sales of 216 million euros. Results that exploded in 2020, with the boom in e-commerce linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.

An ambitious development strategy

Thanks to a network of urban warehouses called " dark stores ", which Glovo intends to develop to own 200 by the end of 2021, the start-up boasts that it can deliver to major cities in 10 minutes. It relies on algorithms to anticipate consumer habits and ensure very fast delivery.

To grow its network of dark stores, in early 2021 the start-up announced a €100 million partnership with real estate company Stoneweg.

The 450 million euros raised will be used by Glovo to hire 200 additional engineers to work on developing the technologies needed for ever-faster delivery.

Already present in a number of African countries, including Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco and Egypt, Glovo aims to further expand its presence there.

The Spanish start-up also wants to multiply local partnerships, like the one set up with Carrefour in 2019. After an initial partnership with Monoprix and Franprix, which was limited to the French territory, Glovo can now extend its reach to Carrefour in 3 countries, as the sole deliverer of 2,500 references of food items.