Tech in Africa
Bolt has announced a $713 million (€600M) funding round that raises its valuation to over $4.8 billion (€4B). The funds were raised to boost its entry into the grocery delivery market segment. The funding came from Sequoia, G Squared, Tekne, and Ghisallo, Naya, and D1 Capital.
Bolt is an international Estonian multinational company that has thus far raised over €4 billion. The funds will go into supporting its efforts to introduce the Bolt Market 15-Distribution Service across 10 European countries. The aim of the service is to meet the last-minute needs of the grocers.
Bolt’s Head of Product Development Jevgeni Kabanov, told ERR news that it would be convenient for anyone planning to make porridge at home and suddenly discovers they are running low on milk and can have it ordered and delivered within 10-15 mins. The intent is not to replace the family’s weekly shopping but rather a horn grocery store.
Bolt operates in over 150 cities spread across 5 continents and faces competition from other carpooling competitors in various places. Other prominent players are Uber Eats which has double its grocery delivery presence recently after it entered into a partnership with the Albertsons Companies. Doordash also announced a partnership with Albertsons Companies which offers one-hour grocery delivery across 2000 delivery stores.
Global online grocery delivery platforms have raised over $10 billion this year in venture-backed funding. Several “dark store” startups are emerging and offering 10-minute wait-time deliveries. With the market approaching saturation experts are seeing a potential saturation point and anticipating consolidation where they will be acquired by the majors like Amazon, etc.
