Instant messaging app Getir acquires competitor Gorillas • businessroundups.org

After weeks of rumours, getir has announced that it is taking over Gorillas. This is a major consolidation deal for the instant grocery delivery space. The Financial Times reported first that Getir has completed the acquisition of its competitor. businessroundups.org has confirmed the news with Getir.

“Markets go up and down, but consumers love our service and convenience is here to stay. The super-fast grocery delivery industry will grow steadily in the coming years and Getir will lead in this category it created 7 years ago,” Getir founder Nazim Salur said in a statement.

Getir originally launched its service in 2015 in Turkey. In recent years, many people have started ordering groceries online because of the lockdown restrictions. Getir, Gorillas, Flink and a cohort of startups tried to popularize a new grocery delivery model.

Instead of reserving a delivery time for the next day, orders are processed directly in those apps. The user experience works more like meal delivery services, such as Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat Takeaway. You open an app, choose a few items, press the order button and track your order from your phone.

Those services brought in a ton of money and grew at a rapid pace during the COVID-19 pandemic. Behind the scenes, all those instant delivery startups have been building networks of dark shops in densely populated cities so orders can be delivered in less than an hour.

In addition to these expensive operating costs, startups in the space spent a small fortune on promo codes and reduced delivery costs. But restrictions were lifted, VC funding dried up, and some cities imposed restrictions on dark shops. Therefore, 2022 has been a difficult year for the industry, with many layoffs, withdrawals and consolidation moves.

In May, Getir announced it would cut 14% of its global workforce — more than 4,000 were affected by the downsizing. In addition to its home country, Getir is active in several European countries, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal. It also operates in the US.

Gorillas also had to go through a round of layoffs earlier this year. It decided to focus on a handful of markets: Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and the US. The German startup acquired Frichti before it became more difficult to secure funding rounds.

According to Tim Bradshaw of the Financial Times, the combined group is now valued at $10 billion. At the peak of the instant shopping bubble, Getir and Gorillas reached valuations of $11.8 billion and $3 billion, respectively. Gorillas investors will get 12% of Getir’s capitalization table.

Since there is a lot of overlap between the two companies, layoffs may occur in some cities where both services currently operate. Reducing the number of dark shops could also benefit the company’s bottom line.