Glovo collects 450 million in investments and focuses on spending in 10 minutes

The largest loan ever closed by a Spanish startup will allow the food delivery group to invest in dark stores for proximity shopping

A delivery man from Glovo (Carol Smiljan / NurPhoto) Fifteen physical dark stores in Milan, Turin and Rome and over 100 hires, is Glovo's plan for fast micro-spending. "A basket with a few essential products to be received not in hours, but minutes", she explained to Elisa Pagliarani, general manager of the company for Italy. The company intends to build it on the strength of the largest financing round (series F) ever concluded by a Spanish startup: 450 million euros, led by Lugard Road Capital and Luxor Capital Group.

With this capital injection, which was also attended by previous investors, Delivery Hero, Drake Enterprises and Gp Bullhound, Glovo intends to have 200 dark stores in the nerve centers of the cities where it is present, in twenty countries around the world, by the end of 2021. "Dark stores they are created to satisfy the demands of last minute shopping ”, Pagliarani points out. The model is that of a multi-category “quick commerce”, a home delivery service for shopping and other products, at any time of the day. Few items, delivered even in less than ten minutes by rider or directly to the customer, passing to the collection point.

The first Italian dark store was inaugurated in Turin, followed by the one in Milan, and with the extension the project envisages "one hundred hires as dedicated personnel". Described in these terms, however, the initiative seems to imply, at least for some of the employees, an organizational and contractual organizational model different from the one that concerns the food delivery riders, for which Glovo is involved with three other companies in an investigation of the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office, which asked for the hiring of 60,000 messengers as parasubordinates.

Meanwhile, the shopping segment for Glovo has "grown by 400%" in the last year, explains Pagliarani. For delivery from the supermarket, collaborations are already active with Carrefour and Gruppo Végé, but shopping via the dark store will not favor a wide selection guaranteed by the large-scale distribution, but rather the speed to satisfy an immediate need.

The assortment will be able to include fruit and vegetables, fresh and frozen products, personal care and household items, up to those for early childhood. Storage in the physical space will be constantly remodeled thanks to an artificial intelligence system and predictive data analysis, based on the needs expressed by users (Glovo has 10 million worldwide), to cover last-minute needs.


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Topics

Ecommerce Food delivery Gig economy startup globalData.fldTopic = "Ecommerce, Food delivery, Gig economy, startup "

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