Doordash is said to want to take over gorillas
The Gorillas delivery service is negotiating new financing. The round is headed by US competitor Doordash. A panic sale seems possible.
As Sifted reports, the US food supplier Doordash is to participate in a financing round of the Berlin start-up Gorillas, which has been battered by labor disputes. Gorillas has been working on fundraising for three months. Initially, Gorillas had targeted $ 1 billion in new capital at a valuation of $ 6 billion.
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Low billions should be in the room
In the meantime, the startup had to say goodbye to both this assessment and the amount of the new funds to be acquired. There is currently talk of targeting funds that would justify at least a valuation of $ 2.5 billion. This lower rating is said to have drawn Lieferando competitor Doordash’s attention to gorillas, as in turn the Financial Times reported.
Sifted’s sources see a “sell-out” of gorillas instead of Doordash’s stake in the company. The impression arose that the deal would take place on the “worst possible terms”. There is even fear that Doordash could buy the entire company for a “low billions” amount.
Doordash has so far no presence in Europe. It has already been reported several times that the company is looking for a takeover opportunity. This is also supported by the fact that the company has been looking for staff in Germany for several weeks. Among other things, the management and personnel management are advertised. From the context of the financing round, Sifted claims to have learned that Doordash wants to “take advantage of the market share of gorillas in Europe”.
Employees see the possible takeover as a strategy to bypass employee participation.
Delivering food is no longer enough for the food delivery company
In its core business, Doordash is a supplier of restaurant products, i.e. a competitor of Lieferando, Lieferheld and others. However, more and more of these providers are now realizing that they already have the complete logistics for entering the on-demand market for supermarket deliveries and want to position themselves in this area as quickly as possible.
It was recently announced that the US service Gopuff is taking over the London-based ten-minute delivery service Dija and wants to move into the German market as soon as possible. Other, older food suppliers in Europe are also pushing into the on-demand area. For example, Estonian startup Bolt received $ 713 million this week to get into the on-demand grocery business. Bolt started as an Uber competitor, so actually a taxi alternative.
Doordash has been around in the US for eight years. The company went public last December and is currently valued at around $ 59 billion. Gorillas has enjoyed an impeccable reputation among venture capitalists so far. As the fastest growing European technology company, Gorillas had already achieved unicorn status just nine months after its launch.
The avoidable descent of the unicorn called gorilla
Then there was a data scandal in May 2021. Security experts had shown the company glaring deficiencies in its operating software. The researchers were able to read around 200,000 customer and driver data records from the Gorillas systems without any problems. The research collective, which calls itself Zerforschung, then appealed to venture capitalists to make software security an important criterion in their capital decisions.
Then in June there was a break with a considerable part of the employees. An employee’s dismissal, which was perceived as unjustified, was not accepted by his colleagues. With a sit-in and an ultimatum, the reinstatement of the employee should be enforced. The termination was probably just the last drop that broke the barrel.
A group called the “Gorillas Workers Collective”, which works with the food-enjoyment-restaurants union (NGG), had long accused the company’s management of exploitative behavior. The formation of works councils, to which employees are entitled due to the size of the company, would also be specifically blocked. Instead of trying to de-escalate, the Gorillas management under Kağan Sümer remained tough. That kept fueling the conflict. As a result, further grounds for complaint were added. Salaries are sometimes paid late, overtime is not properly accounted for. The backpacks are too heavy and the protective clothing is not tight enough when it rains. In addition, not all employees are provided with the necessary tools.
Since then, there have been repeated stoppages, even the Berlin public order office had to intervene because Gorillas had tried to avoid the sit-ins of its employees by setting up a logistics center on a sidewalk. At the beginning of this week, the Berlin Senate intervened and initiated fine proceedings against the company for multiple violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
Gorillas are not challenged by any of this. The company insists on emphasizing that it has a culture of inclusion, goodwill and dialogue.
