Korean eGrocer Kurly Expects $2.5B in GMV

As it prepares to go public, the South Korean eGrocer Kurly expects to reach $2.5 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) after crossing the $1.6 billion (or 2 trillion won) threshold last year.

As Pulse reported Tuesday (Jan. 18), multiple retail industry sources say Kurly founder and CEO Kim Seul-ah set that target in a meeting with employees last week.

One company official said the next-day fresh food delivery service has sustained an average annual sales growth of more than 100%. Kurly had more than 10 million users at the end of 2021, with three-quarters of first-time users coming back to shop.

The news comes a little less than a month after Kurly announced it had raised around $210 million in funding ahead of its initial public offering (IPO), bringing the value of the Seoul-based company to more than $3.3 billion.

Read more: Korean eGrocer Kurly Raises $210M in Pre-IPO Round as Global Competition Heats Up

The IPO is set for June of this year. Last October, Kurly said it expected a value of $5.9 billion after going public. The company raised raised 225.4 billion won (a little less than $200 million) in Series F funding last year after a low valuation made Kurly rethink going public in the U.S.

Kurly services Seoul as well as Chungcheong provinces, Daegu, Busan and Ulsan, through fulfillment centers in Gimpo, Jangji, Hwado and Jukjeon. The company plans to add a fifth distribution center this year, and will use the funding from its IPO to expand its services nationwide, the Pulse report said.

This is happening as demand for digital grocery options is growing. As the PYMNTS study What Consumers Expect From Their Grocery Shopping Experiences found, 34% of consumers in the U.S. buy groceries online, while 18% say they’d prefer this option to buying their groceries from a brick-and-mortar store.

Last month saw a deluge of funding for online grocers and other eCommerce food services, including the U.K.’s HungryPanda, which raised $130 million in a Series D funding round, and the grocery delivery startup Jokr, which took in $260 million in Series B funding.