Getir investors to fund European exit with new cash injection

23 April 2024, 11:58 | Updated: 23 April 2024, 14:32

Investors in Getir, the grocery delivery app which at one point attained a valuation of almost £10bn, are to inject yet more money into the company to fund its exit from the UK and Europe.

Sky News has learnt that shareholders in the company have drawn up provisional plans to commit tens of millions of pounds more into Getir in the coming weeks, even as its retrenchment poses a threat to thousands of jobs.

Sources close to the situation said that leading investors, who include Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi state-backed fund, Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global, were understood to have agreed to the new funding plan in recent days.

It will add to the more than $2bn Getir has already raised, making it one of the world's most handsomely backed fast-delivery platforms.

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An announcement from Getir - which means 'to bring' in Turkish - is expected imminently, bringing the curtain down on an ill-fated breakneck expansion into Europe.

Its operations in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands are all expected to be shut, with discussions ongoing about the fate of its Fresh Direct arm in the US, which it only acquired a few months ago.

The restructuring will leave Getir as a business focused on its domestic Turkish market, with the company planning to focus largely on its food delivery operations there.

Its new funding from shareholders would cover the cost of exiting the three markets in Europe, as well as providing additional capital to invest in the Turkish business, according to insiders.

An announcement could come this week, although people close to the company cautioned that the exact timing had yet to be finalised.

The valuation at which the new money is being injected was unclear on Tuesday.

Its withdrawal from the UK is likely to put about 1,500 jobs at risk, Sky News revealed last week.

The company was valued at nearly $12bn just a couple of years ago amid booming demand for services provided by Getir and rivals like GoPuff, Doordash and Deliveroo.

Getir, which has a multimillion pound commercial partnership with the Premier League's Tottenham Hotspur, said it did not comment on "market rumours".

It has previously denied that any form of insolvency was on the cards for the group or its subsidiaries.

The company is understood to have drafted in restructuring advisers in recent days, while Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi fund that is one of its biggest shareholders, is being advised by AlixPartners.

It has already pulled out of a number of countries, including Italy and Spain, in an attempt to reduce losses.

Its retreat highlights the slumping valuations of technology companies once-hailed as the new titans of food retailing.

Founded in 2015, Getir was one of the hottest start-ups of the pandemic, when financiers rushed to plough billions of dollars into businesses they believed would benefit from structural shifts in the economy.

It raised more than $750m in a funding round in early 2022, but has seen its valuation slump since then.

Last September, Getir also announced a sharp cut in the size of its workforce, axeing roughly 2,500 jobs, or about 10% of its global employee base.

Many of its rivals have already gone bust, while others have been swallowed up as part of a desperate wave of consolidation.

Getir itself bought Gorillas in a $1.2bn stock-based deal that closed in December 2022.

(c) Sky News 2024: Getir investors to fund European exit with new cash injection