UAE. Deliveroo, the on-demand delivery service for high-quality restaurant meals, today launches in five new cities, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney, marking its first foray outside Europe.
The company has also raised a $100 million Series D investment, enabling Deliveroo to feed increasing consumer demand and fuel further international expansion. The round was led by DST Global and Greenoaks Capital with participation from existing investors Accel, Hummingbird Ventures and Index Ventures.
In Dubai, Deliveroo will be available in Dubai Marina, J.L.T., Downtown, Business Bay and the Jumeirah neighbourhoods, with further expansion planned in the upcoming months. A number of Dubai’s favourite restaurants are already signed up, including The Sum of Us, Mythos, Busaba Eathai, Circle Cafe, Toko, Rossovivo, Fumé, Clinton Street Baking and Comptoir 102.
Restaurants partnering with Deliveroo can utilise their excess kitchen capacity to generate an increase of 30% or more in revenue without their own fleet of drivers and technology infrastructure.
General Manager of UAE, Anis Harb said: For the customer, we’re a service that delivers meals from your favourite local, quality restaurants in 30 minutes. We're seeing tremendous growth because we tap into two inherent consumer needs: better selection and faster delivery. We’ve seen it in ecommerce with Amazon, transportation with Uber; now we’re seeing it in food where customers are being more demanding, both on the reliability of the service and the selection of restaurants. These two elements combined make the 2.0 of food delivery. We are delighted to bring this concept that has been so popular in Europe to the GCC market.
In the GCC region, Deliveroo has identified a huge demand for take-away and is now filling that market gap for premium take-away from some of the best restaurants in Dubai. Life in the UAE is fast-paced, so there is an increasing trend of not only eating out, but also ordering food for delivery. In a tax-free environment where residents have more disposable income every month, it comes as no surprise that a recent survey revealed that 60% of UAE residents order take-away at least once per week*, and this figure is only set to increase.
The new cities launch off the back of strong growth and a $70 million investment for international expansion in July of this year. Since the start of 2015, Deliveroo has grown daily orders tenfold and expanded its service to 50 cities across 12 countries. The new investment will be used for further international expansion and to establish the company firmly as the number one provider of on-demand high-quality food delivery. Over 5,000 restaurants are currently delivering through the platform worldwide.
Deliveroo launched in 2013 in London to provide the ultimate food delivery experience. Unlike the majority of food delivery businesses that are purely online marketplaces for takeaway restaurants, Deliveroo partners with premium restaurants that don’t typically provide delivery, offering its customers a range of new choices. Customers quickly and easily order meals, which are delivered by Deliveroo’s team of drivers and cyclists in an average of 30 minutes. The service is powered by Deliveroo’s proprietary technology and logistics platform.
The company’s hyper-local approach is thriving in areas with high population density and quality restaurants, characteristics shared by all its new cities of operation. Residents of the five new Deliveroo cities will now have the option of ordering from a variety of local independent and chain restaurants through the Deliveroo website or mobile app.
William Shu, co-founder and CEO of Deliveroo, said: “We’ve experienced extraordinary demand for our service as consumers want high-quality food delivered quickly and restaurants seek a new significant source of revenue. It’s been phenomenal to see the business quickly expand from London to European capitals and some of the most exciting cities in Asia Pacific and the Middle East.”
DST Global founder Yuri Milner said: “Will and the Deliveroo team are dedicated to providing a great food delivery experience for their customers, restaurant partners and drivers. We hope this new round will support their continued growth.”