Cathay Innovation boosts Glovo’s expansion by leading a 30M€ round

Date: October, 4th, 2017

Glovo raises €30M in a round led by Rakuten Capital & Cathay Innovation, one of 2017 largest start-up financings in Spain

Clipperton acted as the financial advisor to Glovo.

Japanese company Rakuten Capital and Sino-French investor Cathay Innovation are leading this €30m acceleration round.

Currently present in more than 10 cities (Spain, Italy, France), Glovo aims at expanding its “anything-on-demand” delivery marketplace internationally, to lead the last-mile delivery sector.
Paris – October 3, 2017 – Leading European corporate finance firm Clipperton is pleased to announce it acted as the financial advisor to Glovo – a leading “anything-on-demand” delivery app – in the structuration of a €30 million Series B financing round led by Rakuten Capital and Cathay Innovation. Glovo is already present in more than 10 cities (Spain, Italy, France) and the funds will be used to roll-out operations in new cities, strengthen its market position in South of Europe and expand across further product categories. This marks Clipperton first landmark deal in Spain, as part of its strategy to increase coverage in the region.

Founded in Barcelona in 2015, Glovo revolutionizes the way city dwellers buy and consume goods with an app that enables anyone to buy, collect and send any product within a city, wherever and whenever they want. The service is currently available in 8 Spanish cities (including Barcelona and Madrid), in Italy (Milan and Rome) and in France (Paris). With more than 250,000 users, Glovo surpassed the one-million orders threshold in July 2017.

Glovo operates a three-side marketplace between end users, couriers and local retailers establishments. Among more than 3,000 such partners listed on the platform (restaurants, stores, grocery shops, pharmacies…), the Company recently made the headlines with an exclusive partnership with McDonald’s in Spain and in Italy.

“We are very excited to have the support of these new investors who will help us fuel our international expansion” explained Oscar Pierre, co-founder and CEO of Glovo, who added that “this funding will be used to strengthen our market position and to invest in technical developments for the platform in order to be more efficient and to optimize every delivery. This will also enable us to invest in new categories, which is the main differentiating factor of our platform”.

“What Glovo has achieved in such a short period of time is just the beginning of a much wider development plan – both internationally and towards new categories. We are very happy that Glovo’s equity story and exceptional team attracted investors as prestigious as Rakuten Capital and Cathay Innovation, which will for sure bring strong operational support on top of the financing”, added Thibaut Revel, Partner at Clipperton.

This operation marks Clipperton first landmark deal in Spain, following Le Collectionist’s acquisition of Bonder & Co, and is a strong foundation to increase the coverage of the Spain & Portugal region. This third transaction in the ‘logistics’ space, after the successful financings of Cubyn (first-mile on-demand logistics) and Boxtal (online shipping platform), also clearly demonstrates Clipperton’s expertise in the segment.

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About Clipperton

Clipperton is a European independent corporate finance advisory firm exclusively dedicated to the Technology space, advising high growth companies on M&A transactions, debt financings and equity offerings. With offices in London, Berlin, and Paris and an international reach, Clipperton is a European leader in Technology financial advisory. Over the past 15 years, the team has successfully completed more than 200 high profile transactions globally. For more information, visit www.clipperton.net

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