B2C Food Platform GrubMarket Nets $60M, Eyes IPO

GrubMarket, which supplies food to consumers and businesses, has raised $60 million in its Series D round, according to TechCrunch.

Participants included BlackRock, Reimagined Ventures, Trinity Capital Investment and numerous others, TechCrunch reported.

The news is in line with the trend of the year as delivery companies garner investments while the pandemic makes dining out risky.

GrubMarket works in a B2C role in which it ships goods to individuals, and also a B2B role by supplying grocery stores, meal kit startups and other companies, TechCrunch reported. Delivery companies have become part of the regular conversation around food these days, but GrubMarket’s bridge between food producers and companies interacting with customers makes it unique.

The company is now profitable, but originally didn’t think it would make more than $20 million, according to TechCrunch. The company’s valuation is double what it was from the last round at between $400 million and $500 million.

According to Founder and CEO Mike Xu, the company’s plan is to go public, although he didn’t say when that would happen due to the unstable initial public offering (IPO) market and the fact that the company is still raising money.

“The only success criteria of my startup career is whether GrubMarket can eventually make $100 billion of annual sales,” he told TechCrunch.

But as GrubMarket rises to prominence, so do many other similar grocery delivery apps, PYMNTS reported. Fears surrounding the pandemic and the need for sensibly priced home cooking due to job layoffs and economic instability, have been a lifeline to these sorts of companies. Sales grew over 9 percent by July, with earnings increasing to $7.2 billion.

The food delivery field is crowded and ripe for mergers and acquisitions. Uber purchased Postmates, while Just Eat Takeaway inked a deal to buy Grubhub, and the Amazon–Deliveroo deal is still in the works. Amazon found itself initially overwhelmed in the race for the delivery market and hired 175,000 workers.