How much is too much when investing in grocery delivery?
The year 2020 saw a spectacular acceleration in the deployment of venture capital in European startups, with more than €40bn invested according to Atomico’s State of European Tech report . No sector, however, has inspired as much interest lately as grocery delivery — whether it’s online supermarket players such as Oda, Rohlik and Farmdrop, or the 10-minute convenience grocery players such as Gorillas, Weezy, Dija and Getir. Over the first quarter of 2021 alone, literally billions of euros have been invested in European startups serving this particular market .
Some of this is just how the startup world works. Once a sector is deemed hot, the prophecy is self-fulfilling: more founders decide to jump in; more potential customers realise they have access to a new, useful (and cheap) product; more investors want to secure exposure to what appears to be the next big thing; in turn, that inspires even more founders to jump in; and so on and so forth.
But as far as grocery delivery goes, there’s also a long experience curve whereby VCs can feel they’re on firmer footing while deploying those billions of euros.
