Delivery Platform Glovo Buys Spanish, Portuguese Companies

The Spanish courier/delivery service Glovo is purchasing two delivery companies: one in its home country, the other in Portugal.

As Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday (Sept. 14), the company has made a deal to buy Lola Market in Spain and the Portuguese company Mercadao for undisclosed amounts. The two companies will keep their identities and will function independently of Glovo, with Gonçalo Soares da Costa, Mercadao’s chief executive officer, running both businesses. According to Bloomberg, both companies will initially expand in Poland and Italy.

The purchases come on the heels of a $530 million Series F fundraising round by Glovo earlier in the year. At the time, Glovo’s Founder and CEO Oscar Pierre said the funding would be used to expand its “leadership position.”

Read more: Spanish Courier Platform Glovo Notches $530M for Q-Commerce

The company has been expanding throughout Europe, recently purchasing Delivery Hero’s businesses in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia — as well as pieces of Delivery Hero’s Croatian operations — for $207 million.

Also see: Glovo Takes Over Delivery Hero’s Balkan Business for $207M

The Bloomberg report notes that this industry has enjoyed an uptick in demand for quick delivery of groceries and restaurant food. Glovo predicts that the gross transaction value of its Q-commerce business to triple, crossing a run rate of 1 billion euros by the end of next year.

At the same time, the gig worker model relied on by apps like Glovo has been facing increasing government pressure.

Read more: Dutch Court Rules Uber Drivers Are Employees, Fines Co 50,000 Euros

On Monday (Sept. 13), a Dutch court ruled that Uber drivers should be considered employees and not gig workers, and are therefore protected by local labor laws. The decision by the Amsterdam District Court found that the roughly 4,000 Uber drivers in that city are taxi company employees and thus entitled to the benefits in line with that industry.

As for Glovo, Bloomberg says it is facing a change in legislation as Spain passed Europe’s first law deeming delivery riders employees.