Delivery Hero raises another $110M, now valued at $3.1B

The Berlin-based food delivery company is said to be seeking an IPO this year

Delivery Hero is already having a big year in 2015, with enormous fundraising and multiple acquisitions. So could an IPO be what is coming up next?

It certainly seems like a possbility after the Berlin-based food delivery company revealed yet another round of funding. This time it has raised a $110 million round from "two US-based funds," neither of which were named in the report, though it was revealed that Citigroup advised on this capital raising and GLNS acted as legal advisors.

This latest round reportedly values the company at $3.1 billion.

Delivery Hero had taken two investments already this year, both from Rocket Internet. In February it took a 30% stake in Delivery Hero, for the price of €496 million, or $562.4 million, and that was then followed by it taking another 9% of the company for €52 million in March.

Prior to those investment, Delivery Hero had raised over $635 million since its founding in 2010, with $523 million of that coming in 2014, including a $350 million round in September.

All of this fundraising is potentially putting Delivery Hero into position to go public sometime this year. Its $3.1 billion valuation already puts it just under GrubHub, the U.S.-based food delivery company that went public last year, and which now has a market cap for $3.3 billion. As of the end of last week the company was trading at $39.59 a share.

When VatorNews reached out to Delivery Hero for additional comment on its future plans, the compant referred us to comments made to TechCrunch on Sunday, in which Delivery Hero CEO Niklas Östberg would not give a timeline for when it plans to go public, but he also said that he believes the company will be in a position to list this year.

Delivery Hero has also been putting itself in a good place for an IPO by using its fundraisings to expand geographically through acquisitions. It has purchased Turkish food delivery brand Yemeksepeti for $589 million in May, and it acquired Middle Eastern delivery company Talabat.com in March for an undisclosed amount.

The new funds will be used for further acquisitions, as well as "intensive product innovation."

Founded in 2011, the company operates in 34 markets across five continents, and it has over 200,000 participating restaurants.

The food delivery space

Food delivery is seeing a lot of activity this year, especially from Rocket Internet, which spent $700 million in one day in February on investments and purchases in the food delivery space, including in Delvery Hero.

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. 

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: deliveryhero.com)