Glovo, the Barcelona-headquartered delivery startup has closed down its operations in Egypt in the same week it reveals it has raised $168m in Series D funding. Glovo operated in Cairo and Alexandria, where it had 40 employees. Nationally, Glovo had an estimated 10-15% market share of the takeaway food delivery market, competing with Otlob.
Founded in 2015, Glovo is an on demand service that purchases, picks-up and delivers anything that is ordered through the app. Delivery is typically within 20 minutes to one hour by motorbike or bicycle, and the main goods featured on the app are FMCG, takeaway food, pharmaceuticals and electronics. The company now operates in 19 countries.
In Egypt, roughly three quarters of Glovo’s orders were for food deliveries, where it competes directly with market leader Otlob. German food delivery giant Delivery Hero owns a 16% stake in Glovo after having acquired a 15% of stake by investing $57m in 2018 and another 1% by selling its operations to Glovo in Italy.
A key driver for Glovo shutting down in Egypt has been the merger of Uber and Careem, effectively destroying Glovo’s growth prospects in the country. Glovo’s withdrawal from Egypt has come after VC firm Lakestar agreed with Glovo that the Spanish startup would exit Egypt and Chile and focus on expansion in other markets. Lakestar led the April 2019 $168m Series D round of funding for Glovo.
Glovo has also shut operations in Chile. In Africa, the company will now focus on expansion in Casablanca, Morocco, where it entered in January 2019, and Nairobi, Kenya, where it entered in February 2019.
