Skip to main content
https://www.highperformancecpmgate.com/rgeesizw1?key=a9d7b2ab045c91688419e8e18a006621

Kurly, a grocery e-commerce startup in Korea, closes upsized $113M Series D round

Kurly, a startup that operates a grocery delivery service in Korea, said today that it has closed an upsized Series D round that reached a total of $113 million.

The company announced the round in April when it was $88 million led by investors that include Sequoia China, however it has now increased by $25 million. That’s thanks to an injection from China’s Hillhouse Capital, a firm which counts Tencent, Meituan and JD.com among its most successful investments.

Launched in 2015 by former Goldman Sachs and Temasek analyst Sophie Kim, its Kurly Market service is designed to provide groceries and produce to customers who don’t have the time or interest to visit regular retail stores for their shopping.

Kurly Market delivers orders by 7am each morning with customers given until 11pm the previous day to place their order.

Korea is the place for speedy deliveries, if that’s your thing. Coupang, a company backed by SoftBank’s Vision Fund that’s widely seen as ‘the Amazon of Korea’ — and valued at $9 billion, to boot — has built out an impressive network that allows same- and next-day delivery for its “millions”of customers.

Coupang CEO Bo Kim told TechCrunch last year that his company was “approaching” $5 billion in revenue for 2018 with 70 percent annual growth. Additionally, he said, one in every two adults in Korea have the Coupang app on their phone and, having started out in Amazon-like areas, Coupang is doubling down on fresh produce with its own cold chain logistics network.

That represents a direct challenge to Kurly, which differentiates itself by operating through its own brands, unlike Coupang, which runs using a marketplace model to connect retailers with consumers. Kurly is also focused on convenience over cost savings, indeed its service began in Seoul’s high-end Gangnam neighborhood but has since expanded more widely.

Kurly Market products are focused on quality and convenience over price

Still, investors are bullish on Kurly and its laser focus on produce and groceries.

Kurly said its revenue grew three-fold year-on-year to reach $131 million in 2018, although it did not provide profit/loss figures.

“The latest round of investment is a major endorsement of the progress we’ve made differentiating ourselves in the market through our cold-chain fulfillment infrastructure and unique offering of premium, curated products. Our focus is on further strengthening our relationships with our suppliers, developing our fulfillment infrastructure and continually improving our customer experience,” Kim said in a statement.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp steps back from board director role

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp is relinquishing his role as a board director and switching to board observer — where he says he’ll focus on product strategy for the ride hailing giant. Camp made the announcement in a short Medium post in which he writes of his decade at Uber: “I’ve learned a lot, and realized that I’m most helpful when focused on product strategy & design, and this is where I’d like to focus going forward.” “I will continue to work with Dara [Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO] and the product and technology leadership teams to brainstorm new ideas, iterate on plans and designs, and continue to innovate at scale,” he adds. “We have a strong and diverse team in place, and I’m confident everyone will navigate well during these turbulent times.” The Canadian billionaire entrepreneur signs off by saying he’s looking forward to helping Uber “brainstorm the next big idea”. Camp hasn’t been short of ideas over his career in tech. He’s the co-founder of the web 2.0 recommendatio
Post a Comment
Read more

Drone crash near kids leads Swiss Post and Matternet to suspend autonomous deliveries

A serious crash by a delivery drone in Switzerland have grounded the fleet and put a partnership on ice. Within a stone’s throw of a school, the incident raised grim possibilities for the possibilities of catastrophic failure of payload-bearing autonomous aerial vehicles. The drones were operated by Matternet as part of a partnership with the Swiss Post (i.e. the postal service), which was using the craft to dispatch lab samples from one medical center for priority cases. As far as potential applications of drone delivery, it’s a home run — but twice now the craft have crashed, first with a soft landing and the second time a very hard one. The first incident, in January, was the result of a GPS hardware error; the drone entered a planned failback state and deployed its emergency parachute, falling slowly to the ground. Measures were taken to improve the GPS systems. The second failure in May, however, led to the drone attempting to deploy its parachute again, only to sever the line
Post a Comment
Read more

How the world’s largest cannabis dispensary avoids social media restrictions

Planet 13 is the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. Located in Las Vegas, blocks off the Strip, the facility is the size of a small Walmart. By design, it’s hard to miss. Planet 13 is upending the dispensary model. It’s big, loud and visitors are encouraged to photograph everything. As part of the cannabis industry, Planet 13 is heavily restricted on the type of content it can publish on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s not allowed to post pictures of buds or vapes on some sites. It can’t talk about pricing or product selection on others.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Morgan Celeste SF Blogger (@bayareabeautyblogger) on Jan 25, 2020 at 7:54pm PST Instead, Planet 13 encourages its thousands of visitors to take photos and videos. Starting with the entrance, the facility is full of surprises tailored for the ‘gram. As a business, Planet 13’s social media content is heavily restricted and monito
3 comments
Read more