Finnish food delivery scale-up Wolt secures $530 million in new funding round led by ICONIQ

So now that the embargoed-until-tomorrow news is out there, yes, Finnish food delivery juggernaut Wolt has raised $530 million in fresh funding to boost its growth.

The round, which takes its total raised to a hefty $856 million, was led by ICONIQ Growth with Tiger Global, DST, KKR, Prosus, EQT Growth and Coatue joining as new investors. Prior backers 83North, Highland Europe, Goldman Sachs Growth Equity, EQT Ventures and Vintage Investment Partners participated.

Fun fact: Wolt also recently announced a comparatively small (€7.5 million) investment from Delivery Hero co-founder Lukasz Gadowski.

"We raised this round of financing to further strengthen our balance sheet, allowing us to think long-term and double down on building even stronger positions across our markets while continuing to expand our offering beyond the restaurant," said Miki Kuusi, co-founder and CEO of Wolt.

The 7-year old company currently operates in 23 countries and 129 cities, and partners with over 30,000 restaurants today.

Lars Jörnow, a partner at Wolt investor EQT Ventures, commented on the news:

"There's no doubt the pandemic has ignited a sense of urgency for logistics platforms, with the past year transforming the home delivery marketplace across the world. Today’s announcement catapults Wolt into the league of true global breakouts stars and one of the biggest startups to have ever been born in Europe. We are proud and lucky to be able to work with such an amazing team and company, to be part of Wolt's story since leading the Series A in 2016, and to help them achieve their ambition to transform city life globally through customer-first delivery."

Interesting times indeed in the world of getting stuff to people (preferably fast).

This month alone, Berlin-based food delivery powerhouse Delivery Hero raised about €1.2 billion by issuing new shares, whilst Deliveroo secured $180 million in growth funding and Turkish on-demand delivery kingpin Getir raised $128 million to scale up internationally, as the latter's Spanish-born counterpart Glovo just inked a €100 million deal with Stoneweg to continue its expansion.