The Spanish home delivery platform Glovo intends to open at least 15 dark stores in Italy, i.e. storage centers for consumer goods (see the press release here).
The announcement was made on April 1st, at the same time as the closing of a 450 million euro Series F round, led by Lugard Road Capital and Luxor Capital Group. Previous investors also participated in the round: Delivery Hero, Drake Enterprises and GP Bullhound. It was the largest round ever concluded by a Spanish startup. Glovo’s pre-money valuation was not disclosed this time, but when the company had raised the previous 166 million dollar round in December 2019, it was said to have been valued at 1.18 billion dollars (see PitchBook).
Glovo is a platform that allows you to receive and send any products within the city. In Italy, the service is currently available in 200 cities, covering both the large squares (Milan, Rome, Turin, Naples, Florence, Bologna, Palermo, Catania, Bari, Genoa, Verona) and the smaller municipalities. Internationally, Glovo is present in 20 countries. The proceeds from the round just concluded will be used to strengthen Glovo’s services in the 20 markets where it operates, in particular quick commerce: the home delivery service for shopping and other products in a few minutes at any time of the day, complementary to the shopping already offered by Glovo through supermarkets, thanks to agreements with partners such as Carrefour or Gruppo Végé. With quick commerce (q-commerce), Glovo aims to become the app for the city. The development of this area in Italy is led by Agustina Clair, head of q-commerce and food innovation. Looking ahead, in the cities where more dark stores will be active, the platform will be able to deliver the micro-shopping in less than 10 minutes. The goal is to reach a network of 200 dark stores in the world by the end of 2021.
Elisa Pagliarini, general manager of Glovo Italia, explained: “We have inaugurated our second dark store in Milan and the first in Turin and we aim to have at least 15 in the area by the end of the year, planning over 100 hires as dedicated staff. Spending is a segment of our service that has grown by 400% in the last year. Thanks to the distribution of our physical warehouses in the nerve centers of the city, customers can receive the food at home with the same ease with which food is ordered. last minute shopping “.
