Navigating Scale and Fundraising in Food Delivery

Oscar Pierre is the Founder and CEO @ Glovo, the food delivery site that will get you anything you want to your doorstep. This story is insane, the company was started by Oscar 11 years ago, in their pre-seed round they sold ⅓ of the company for €100K. The company was later saved by a deal they made with McDonald's. The company nearly ran out of money on several occasions, one time the funding round came from the CEO of Rakuten who Oscar met an FC Barcelona drinks. Today, they are a part of DeliveryHero who acquired them for $2.2BN, they have delivered 1BN orders and have almost 60M customers. 

In Today’s Episode We Discuss:

04:27 Starting with Nothing

07:30 The First Funding Round: Selling ⅓ of the Company for €100K

09:23 Marketplace Dynamics and Expansion

15:34 The McDonald's Deal That Saved the Company

18:38 Running out of Money Three Times: Fundraising Hell

25:57 International Expansion: What Worked

29:25 Lessons from Failures: What Brazil Taught Us

31:36 How to Win in Emerging Markets

32:02 The Burn Rate (Burning $1M per day) and Investor Concerns

33:29 Scaling Challenges and Competitor Threats

34:29 The Biggest BS Elements of Company Values

35:40 How I Ruined the Culture of the Company

41:14 Layoffs and Talent Management

42:06 Biggest Lessons from M&A

44:41 The Future of Quick Commerce

45:38 Acquisition by Delivery Hero

48:56 Post-Acquisition Reflections

54:47 The CEO on Trial and Facing Prison