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Delivery startup Jokr has reeled in $260M in its latest fundraising effort, which it will use to continue snapping up micro-fulfillment center locations.
This latest round, from both new and returning investors, values the company at $1.2B, Bloomberg reports. Tiger Global, Balderton, GGV and Activant all participated. The company has been taking on investment rapidly, raising $170M in the summer.
Jokr CEO Ralf Wenzel told Bloomberg that company focus is more and more on grocery delivery, and the bulk of business is now in Latin America.
“We’ve had phenomenal growth in our core geographies,” he said. “That gives a very strong conviction that this will be a business that can be a magnitude larger than what we are today.”
Jokr pledges to deliver goods to buyers within 15 minutes, with customers making purchases of items on an app. Right now, the company has around 200 micro-fulfillment centers in 15 cities.
The company launched in June this year in New York City with a plan to convert retail locations into fulfillment centers. It is one of a few companies taking a similar approach, with companies like Gorillas and 1520 signing long-term leases for storefronts at a rapid clip and turning them into miniature warehouses.
Venture capitalists are rushing to try and get ahead in the rapidly expanding quick commerce sector, per Bloomberg, but not everyone approves of the way these kinds of offerings are expanding in places like New York City.
“I think that the model is among the most absurd that I've ever seen,” Phil Lempert, a supermarket expert and the food trends editor for Today on NBC, told Bisnow in October.
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