Delivery Hero has become Europe’s leading founder factory by number of alumni-founded startups, according to a new analysis published today by startup data platform Dealroom.co.
Alumni of Delivery Hero and its European brands have launched 150 startups and built businesses worth a combined €7.5 billion, employing 11,000 people globally.
Together, those companies have raised €4.4 billion in venture capital, making Delivery Hero the top European founder factory in Dealroom’s analysis by VC raised by alumni-founded startups. Their combined enterprise value has increased fourfold since 2020.
Dealroom’s analysis counts alumni from Delivery Hero’s European brands, including Delivery Hero’s Berlin HQ, efood, foodora, foodpanda’s European operations, foody, Glovo, and Yemeksepeti. It also includes alumni who left those companies before Delivery Hero acquired them.
Value created in Europe, anchored in Germany
Germany is at the centre of this impact. Berlin-based startups account for €4.9 billion of the network’s €7.5 billion in combined enterprise value, while about 3,700 of the 11,000 jobs created are in Germany.
Delivery Hero’s Berlin headquarters alone has produced 42 next-generation startups with a combined enterprise value of €4.4 billion. They have raised €3.5 billion in VC and employ around 6,800 people globally.
While Delivery Hero ranks first in Germany across the report’s key founder-factory measures, its position varies across Europe. It ranks first by number of alumni-founded startups and VC raised, fifth by their combined enterprise value, and fourth by jobs created.
Its impact also reaches across its European brands. Beyond the Berlin headquarters, alumni of Delivery Hero brands have founded companies across its European markets. foodora alone accounts for 49 startups founded across France, Spain, Scandinavia, and Central Europe, worth a combined €2.3 billion.
Former Glovo employees have founded 35 startups worth a combined €461 million. The effect is also spreading beyond food delivery.
Food remains the largest sector, with 33 alumni-founded companies, but enterprise software is close behind with 32 and has the strongest early-stage pipeline. Health and transportation account for 19 startups each, with alumni also building companies across fintech, marketing, real estate, energy, and other sectors.
From employees to founders
The report also offers a closer look at who is leaving Delivery Hero to build companies. Alumni founders spent a median of around three years at Delivery Hero before starting a company, with 53 per cent founding after spending between one and three years there.
Only 29 per cent had held C-level, director, or VP positions before becoming founders. The transition from employee to entrepreneur is often rapid: a third founded their company within six months of leaving Delivery Hero, while 43 per cent did so within a year. Operations and technical teams have produced the largest numbers of founders.
The startups also appear to progress through the funding pipeline at a relatively high rate. Of Delivery Hero alumni companies that raised standardised Seed rounds between 2010 and 2020, 47 per cent subsequently raised a Series A, compared with around 30 per cent of startups overall. Twenty-eight per cent reached Series B and 11 per cent Series C or later.
Capital and talent flowing back into the ecosystem
Delivery Hero’s impact on Europe’s tech ecosystem doesn’t stop with its direct alumni. It has also led to a second generation of founders, with alumni-founded companies from a diverse range of industries, such as Gorillas, Kaia Health, and Zenjob, becoming founder factories themselves.
According to the report, people who worked at companies founded by Delivery Hero alumni have created around 80 additional second-generation startups, with fast-growing companies such as Gorillas and Circ becoming significant sources of new founders.
Delivery Hero alumni are also investing in the next generation of companies. More than 30 people who worked at Delivery Hero have moved into venture capital by founding or joining more than 35 investment firms. Those firms have raised €7.3 billion in new funds since 2020 and participated in more than 2,300 funding rounds over the same period, representing more than €79 billion in total deal volume.
Since 2017, Delivery Hero alumni startups have averaged two exits per year.
Niklas Östberg, Co-Founder and CEO of Delivery Hero, said:
“In the fifteen years since we founded Delivery Hero, we have proudly emerged as the leading network that feeds capital, founders, operators and experience back into the European ecosystem.
I love to see that impact continue to grow. And I want to see the next generation of European founders have the same opportunity to build and scale here – Europe just needs to keep creating the conditions for that to happen.”
Yoram Wijngaarde, Founder and CEO of Dealroom.co, said:
“The accumulation of talent in the European ecosystem is accelerating, as more founders and investors have experienced from the inside what it means to scale a globally leading company.
Delivery Hero stands out as a central anchor in this network, which spans all over Europe.”
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