German food delivery company Delivery Hero acquired the Dubai-based online grocery platform Instashop as it looks to further expand within the Mena region.
Delivery Hero said on Thursday that it acquired all outstanding shares of Instashop at a valuation of $360 million (Dh1.3 billion). It will pay an initial price of $270m and will pay the remaining amount if Instashop meets its profitability targets.
Instashop will use the funding to launch in new markets and grow its operations, Delivery Hero said.
"As a leading player in the grocery segment, InstaShop has built a service customers love, and their expertise is a great addition to our quick commerce expansion," said Niklas Östberg, chief executive and co-founder of Delivery Hero.
As per the deal, Instashop will operate as an independent brand under its founders but will complement Delivery Hero's operations in the region.
Launched in 2015 by John Tsioris and Ioanna Angelidaki, Instashop operates in the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Lebanon and Bahrain and partners with 1,500 vendors. The online grocery platform has an annualised gross merchandise volume of $300m, according to Delivery Hero.
"The partnership with Delivery Hero is a great opportunity for us to continue to grow our business and put the group's expertise to use," Mr Tsioris said.
Although Instashop is "focused on driving growth within its current geographies, joining Delivery Hero also opens up future complementary opportunities of expanding its footprint globally", the company said.
Delivery Hero owns and operates Middle East-based food ordering platform Talabat, which has gradually acquired its regional rivals to consolidate its operations and shore up its bottom line in a highly fragmented market.
Last year, it bought the Middle East operations of its major competitor Zomato but has allowed it to retain its brand identity. However, it absorbed some of its earlier acquisitions such as Kuwait's food delivery platform Carriage and Egypt's Otlob under Talabat.
Instashop's acquisition could help Delivery Hero cement Talabat's grocery delivery operations in the region and advance its strategy of quick commerce, the company said.
The partnership with Delivery Hero is a great opportunity for us to continue to grow our business ...
The grocery retail market across the Mena region is forecast to grow at 9.5 per cent this year, according to data from Euromonitor, to a value of $426.5bn. However, the online grocery market is still largely untapped. According to a report by Wamda, the e-grocery market in the GCC and Egypt is currently worth $200m and accounts for less than 1 per cent of the region's burgeoning e-commerce industry.
However, the coronavirus pandemic has shifted consumption trends as stay-at-home measures forced people to rely on digital platforms like Instashop and other e-commerce giants such as Noon and Amazon.
This has also increased the investment appeal of such companies. Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia-based online grocery platform Nana raised $18m from a funding round led by Saudi Technology Ventures. Co-investors in the funding round included Middle East Venture Partners, Wamda Capital, Watar Partners and SVC, as well as the company’s existing angel investors.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
FA Cup quarter-final draw
The matches will be played across the weekend of 21 and 22 March
Sheffield United v Arsenal
Newcastle v Manchester City
Norwich v Derby/Manchester United
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Zayed Sustainability Prize
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The%20specs
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
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Tips for job-seekers
- Do not submit your application through the Easy Apply button on LinkedIn. Employers receive between 600 and 800 replies for each job advert on the platform. If you are the right fit for a job, connect to a relevant person in the company on LinkedIn and send them a direct message.
- Make sure you are an exact fit for the job advertised. If you are an HR manager with five years’ experience in retail and the job requires a similar candidate with five years’ experience in consumer, you should apply. But if you have no experience in HR, do not apply for the job.
David Mackenzie, founder of recruitment agency Mackenzie Jones Middle East
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Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
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October 1 - Phil Nichol (stand-up comedy)
October 29 - Mandy Knight (stand-up comedy)
November 5 - Sinatra Raw (Fringe theatre)
November 8 - Imah Dumagay & Sundeep Fernandes (stand-up comedy)
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How Voiss turns words to speech
The device has a screen reader or software that monitors what happens on the screen
The screen reader sends the text to the speech synthesiser
This converts to audio whatever it receives from screen reader, so the person can hear what is happening on the screen
A VOISS computer costs between $200 and $250 depending on memory card capacity that ranges from 32GB to 128GB
The speech synthesisers VOISS develops are free
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Partnerships planned during Expo 2020 Dubai to add more languages
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More than 90 per cent live in developing countries
The Long-term aim of VOISS to reach the technology to people in poor countries with workshops that teach them to build their own device
