The Big Potential in Food Delivery

The food delivery business remains a hot sector for investors, despite recent high-profile ups and downs. Here in Europe, for example, we saw Brussels-based Take Eat Easy fold recently after failing to secure a much-needed cash injection. The entry of global heavyweights such as UberEATS and Amazon Fresh certainly adds pressure to other players. However, with the UK’s Deliveroo being funded to the tune of £250 million ($306 million) recently, Berlin-based Delivery Hero rumored to be lining up an IPO, and juggernaut Just Eat seeing its stocks soaring, the sector definitely isn’t slowing down.

And then there’s the B2B market. City Pantry, in the UK, raised £1.1 million ($1.35 million) for its office catering business. [Disclosure: The fund I manage, Angel CoFund, is an investor in City Pantry.] The B2B market doesn’t face the same flood of business around peak ordering times as B2C players do, since corporate orders tend to be placed well in advance, so companies in this space can plan their staffing levels and delivery management ahead of time.

We’re seeing similar growth across the pond in San Francisco, too. A few weeks ago, we heard that on-demand delivery service Postmates – which focuses primarily on food delivery – is raising $100 million in additional funding. Postmates is apparently moving to gain market share against competitors as the on-demand meal delivery space expands. Competitors includ Sprig, which specializes in healthy food with traceable ingredients, Grubhub/Seamless, DoorDash, and – again – UberEATS and Amazon Fresh.

via: VentureBeat