When Nazim Salur announced his company had achieved unicorn status – reaching a valuation of $2.6bn – it seemed the sky was the limit for Getir, the speedy grocery delivery startup he helped launch half a decade earlier.
As the Covid-19 pandemic reached new peaks in early 2021, so did demand for the home-delivery services offered by the likes of Deliveroo, Gorillas and Getir. With more than $500m of investor cash in the bank, he was buoyantly plotting a wider European rollout and expansion to the US.
The monster funding round had been led by American investment giants Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global, with a handful of new investors joining – including a multi-billion dollar wealth fund run by the Abu Dhabi government: Mubadala.
Four years later, a lot has changed. Getir’s valuation soared to around $12bn before crashing down again. Tough market conditions forced the company to abandon Europe and the US, shifting focus to its home market of Turkey. Meanwhile, relations between Getir’s founders and Mubadala – which quickly became the company’s lead investor – have soured.
“Knowing what I know now, I would have never taken Mubadala as an investor,” Salur told Sifted.
Signed, sealed, delivered
Mubadala is Getir’s largest shareholder, having given the company 80% of the capital it’s raised since 2021. The firm led Getir’s $768m Series E round in 2022, at the height of the company’s dizzying expansion. The round gave Getir its peak valuation of $11.8bn.
In June 2024, Mubadala led a $250m cash injection into Getir, in exchange for a control of Getir’s food and grocery business in Turkey. As part of the deal, Getir would undergo a major restructure, while Salur stepped down as CEO.
That agreement has since fallen apart. “The founders have demonstrated an inability to complete this agreement,” Mubadala said in a statement to Sifted.
As a result, a new agreement was voted through by shareholders in January. It means Mubadala will inject more emergency financing into the business in exchange for control of Getir Turkey and stakes in two subsidiaries: GetirFinance and BiTaksi, a ride hailing app.
“They play partners in the morning and creditors in the afternoon, threatening the company. It’s a coup.”
Before being finalised via an emergency shareholder vote, the new agreement was voted on by Getir’s board. That consists of nine people: the three founders of Getir, three Mubadala representatives, a representative of GSquared and two independent board members.
Salur says he and his two cofounders were not invited to the board meeting where the deal was passed.
Mubadala argues it provided the “only viable, funded option to secure the future of Getir,” in the face of non-compliance from the firm’s founders. A Dutch court on Friday sided with Mubadala.
The new deal will “secure Getir’s financial stability” and protect the employment of its 18k Turkish employees, Mubadala says.
The spat is not the only European tech drama the $300bn sovereign wealth fund has faced recently. Mubadala was embroiled in a board dispute over the future of Wefox, a German insurance startup. The board is reported to have rejected a proposal by Mubadala to sell the company.
GetirFinance
Salur and his cofounders launched multiple businesses within Getir, including a taxi company, a car rental business and GetirFinance, a neobank, launched in 2023.
Salur claims Mubadala reneged on the original deal and pursued a new one in order to take control of GetirFinance.
In June last year — when Getir and Mubadala drew up the initial agreement to divide the company — GetirFinance was being tested in beta by employees but was yet to be rolled out to the general public, Salur says.
GetirFinance raised $70m from Crankstart, the personal investment vehicle of Sequoia investor Michael Moritz, and Turkey’s Isbank, giving the company a $250m valuation.
“We are at the very early phase of a longer legal battle.”
“When we were deciding how to split up the companies, Mubadala wanted the grocery and food businesses, and they weren’t interested in the rest that much,” Salur says.
Since the June agreement, Salur says GetirFinance has performed significantly better than projections suggested it would, signing up more customers and banking more deposits than it was projected to when it secured its $250m valuation.
GetirFinance’s success got Mubadala interested in it, Salur says.
Mubadala declined to comment on its interest in GetirFinance, but told Sifted it pursued the new deal in order to inject enough capital into the business to save it.
The court case
Last Friday, an Amsterdam Court heard an appeal initiated by Getir cofounders Salur and Serkan Boraçili against the new deal.
Their appeal was rejected, with the court finding that Mubadala had acted in the interests of the company, which was facing immediate bankruptcy. According to Dutch publication FD, which was present in court, Mubadala’s lawyer said Getir would run out of money in two weeks’ time if the new deal did not pass and inject the emergency $50m into the business.
Mubadala’s lawyer added that Getir expected a deficit of $2.7m in the first week of February, rising to more than $71m by mid-April.
The founders’ lawyer argued Mubadala was using the threat of bankruptcy to acquire GetirFinance cheaply.
“This is a fake threat,” says Salur. “They play partners in the morning and creditors in the afternoon, threatening the company. It’s a coup.”
Salur adds that he will now go to the Dutch Supreme Court, while also mounting legal challenges in the UK and Turkey. “We are at the very early phase of a longer legal battle.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/getir-mubadala-court-room-drama/
