Goldman Sachs and Rocket Internet give Foodpanda $100M

Rocket Internet has made a huge number of investments and purchases in food delivery this year

2015 is so far shaping up to be a great year for food delivery, with a slew of deals and money flowing into this space. And most of it is coming from one single source. 

One of the biggest beneficiaries so far has been Rocket Internet's Foodpanda, which received €104 million in funding from its parent company in March, and has now added another big round on top of that.

Foodpanda has raised another $100 million in funding, it was announced on Friday. The roundwas led by Goldman Sachs, along with existing investors, including Rocket Internet, also participating.

With this latest funding, Foodpanda has now raised a total of $310 million.

Founded in 2012, Foodpanda has services in over 40 countries, including Croatia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Tanzania, Qatar, Pakistan, Nigeria and Uganda. Last year, the company rolled out to 20 countries and, last year, it expanded its operations in Russia through its purchase of Delivery Club, the country's leading food delivery service.

Foodpanda is active in over 580 cities around the world, operating in 12 of the largest 20 metropolises, and partnering with over 60,000 restaurants.

Rather than continue to expand, the company says that it will use the funding  "to further expand its own delivery activities and improve overall customer experience" in its current markets.

We are very happy about the recent support from Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, with its deep expertise in online marketplaces, and which, together with our renowned group of investors, will allow us to build the leading mobile food delivery marketplace in Emerging Markets targeting over 3 billion consumers," Ralf Wenzel, Co-Founder and CEO of the foodpanda group, said in a statement.

"The Emerging Markets represent the largest opportunity in online food delivery and we are committed to create the most convenient way for ordering and delivering food."

Rocket Internet has been making big waves in the food delivery space in the last few months, spending $700 million in one day in February on investments and purchases in the food delivery space.

It took a 30% stake in rival food delivery company Delivery Hero, for the price of €496 million, or $562.4 million, and it also made a €130 million ($147.4 million) investment in HelloFresh. Rocket also made some acquisitions buying up Southern European online food takeaway companies La Nevera Roja in Spain, and Pizzabo in Italy and seven companies in Asia. 

That was followed up by another €52 million in Delivery Hero, increasing its ownership in the company to 39%, in March. 

Rocket Internet's food delivery investments were so large, in fact, that they actually accounted for three of top five deals in Europe during the first quarter of 2015!

Of course, not all activity is coming from Rocket Internet. In April, Square acquired Fastbit, and integrated it with Caviar, the food delivery company it bought in August of last year.  And that same month, Sprig, an on-demand meal service, raised $45 million in Series B funding.

(Image source: galleryhip.com)