- There’s a boom in investor interest in European grocery delivery startups in 2020.
- These “dark store” startups promise speedy grocery deliveries in as little as 10 minutes, and investors hope the concept explodes as food delivery and ride-hailing have.
- Business Insider understands that new dark store startup Dija is raising at a large valuation, while German firm Gorillas has raised funding from hedge fund Coatue.
- Established tech firms such as Russia’s Yandex and Delivery Hero have established dark store networks in the last 12 months and are expanding across Europe.
Europe’s tech investors are piling into dark store startups, hoping that superfast grocery delivery can disrupt retail in the way food delivery apps revolutionized takeaway.
A dark store is essentially a grocery store without customers, dedicated to fulfilling online deliveries of groceries and other supplies. Buying your weekly food supply online is an established concept, but the new wave of dark store startups in Europe promise to cut urban delivery time from days or hours to as little as 10 minutes by using a network of small urban warehouses.
The European grocery retail market is overall expected to be worth approximately €2.3 trillion ($2.7 trillion) in 2022, according to IGD.