Niklas Östberg

We often get questioned around DH’s minority investments. Below our five (by far) largest minority investments:
👉 Deliveroo - Invested £230mn, now holding 5.09%. Started to buy at £2.30 a share (avg. £2.70) now at £3.76 a couple months later
👉 Zomato - March 2019 at $1.8bn valuation in connection with a great partnership. Good two years later and company is worth $12.3bn.
👉 Rappi - Invested $105mn in Dec 2017 at $500mn valuation. Last round at $5bn. Some dilution in between but still high single digit multiple.
👉 Just Eat Takeaway - Not a 5-10x but we took a €420mn stake at €45 a share. We sold some and made collar on some at c. €75 a couple months later (mid 2019). Used the money to generate several x return in other places.
👉 Glovo - Invested in my favourite company in Jun 2018 at €200mn valuation. We now hold c. 43% (non-diluted for ESOPs) in a company with latest valuation of $2.34bn.

We tend to believe we have a good understanding of the industry and always have some strategic logic behind every large investment. As soon as that’s not the case we’ve proven that we are willing to monitize.

Today, we released our Q1 financials. These results create an encouraging outlook for us on our continued path to profitability.

Our focus remains on our long term commitment to building a sustainable, profitable business, and our journey is well underway.

Honoured to join the Zalando SE board of directors. A great company with fantastic leadership.

Now more than 1,000 Dmart stores globally. 3,000 items and below 20min avg. delivery time. Very cool service. #DeliveryHero #qCommerce

Europe urgently needs some tech champions. We’re doing our best. Largest tech IPO in 2024 by Delivery Hero’s subsidiary Talabat. 🥳🚀

FINAL: Founder story (0 funding to €45m exit)

On Christmas 2011, my new company Delivery Hero (DH) made an offer to acquire my old team at OnlinePizza for €45mn, of which 51% paid in cash. There were three fundamental challenges, 1) our main competitor, Just Eat had a pre-emption right, 2) OnlinePizza was still larger than DH, 3) DH was only a year old, had no cash and only 21 days to raise €23mn if OnlinePizza signed.

Things turned sour from the start. As expected, Just Eat pre-empted the transaction. They were then given 30 + 30 days to close the deal. They managed to get General Atlantic to back their funding. As things looked hopeless for DH, the country managers and teams of the countries I had set up a couple years earlier, made a ‘revolution’ as they had preferred DH to be the acquirer. They all resigned 1 week before closing with a clear mantra “United we stand, divided we fall.” Just Eat demanded an extension to their Due Diligence timeline but my old friends at OnlinePizza declined. 11.45pm the day before timeline lapsed, Just Eat sent legal letter that they would sue them if they proceeded with sale to DH. 7am we were on the ground in Stockholm and hours later we signed the transaction.

After signing we had 21 days to raise €23mn or fail the transaction. We already had €11mn lined up but on day 3, that investor folded. We had no longer a chance to raise from a larger investor but had to do one of the largest family and friends rounds in European start-up history. On day 21 we had managed to raise €23mn via 40+ friends and friends of friends and their friends. All's well that ends well!

Main learnings from 4 years pizza.nu/OnlinePizza:
👉 Every story is unique! Decisions that were right for us would be crazy for other companies in other circumstances.
👉 No founder path is easy and there will be endless of hurdles. Hard work and sleepless nights are often part of the journey.
👉 Friendship and loyalty really made a difference to us.
👉 There’s nothing wrong with raising capital, but it’s also possible to be successful without capital
👉 Most importantly, love the journey, not the destination.

10 years Delivery Hero, incredible feeling!

We started delivering food, now we deliver anything - at record speed. 50 countries and still growing.

Thank you for a #DecadeofHeroes!

#likeheroes #deliveryhero