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As quickly as the Berlin start-up Gorillas delivers its purchases, founder Kagan Sümer has reached a billion-dollar valuation.
The online supermarket has just raised the equivalent of 245 million euros ($ 290 million), which gorillas value at over a billion dollars.
This means that the ten-minute delivery service is already a unicorn just nine months after the first order.
No German start-up has ever achieved this.
The Chinese tech group Tencent, which has a stake in Fintech Clark and the air taxi builder Lilium, is new.
In addition to smaller funds, all of the previous shareholders went along, and the seed investor Atlantic Food Labs also raised money.
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A Gorillas spokeswoman initially did not want to comment on the investment in response to a “start-up scene” request.
It was only in December that investors put 36 million euros into the start-up, led by the New York hedge fund Coatue and the private equity company DST Global, known for investments in Facebook and Auto1.
Hundreds of positions posted by gorillas
Including the seed investment from Atlantic Food Labs in the summer, the lightning delivery service has now collected around 250 million euros.
Chef Sümer's idea is only a good year old, and the final entry in the commercial register was not made until May 2020.
And things have been hot since then: Co-founder Jörg Kattner left the company in January.
At the same time, Sümer brought other managing directors on board.
Ex-Deliveroo Germany boss Felix Chrobog took over the position of Chief Operating Officer in December.
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The former Lidl boss for the British market Ronny Gottschlich has been hired as Chief Commercial Officer, the former Director of Delivery Hero Canberk Donmez is now taking care of the expansion.
And it is progressing.
The start-up is active in 13 cities and has 40 locations.
The delivery service now opens at least one new warehouse a week.
Gorillas currently has more than 250 jobs advertised on its website plus numerous driver jobs.
In February it was said that the Berlin company had around 1,000 employees.
A month later it should be far more.
The company and investors keep saying that the courier drivers are the heart of the matter.
Founder Sümer says he is a passionate cyclist and test the traffic and routes for himself before adding a new part of the city to his app.
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He sees himself as one of them, a driver who has set up a company himself.
Therefore, gorillas do not rely on flashy bags and clothing, but on modern equipment.
Gorillas United initiative
According to the website, couriers receive an hourly wage of 10.50 euros plus a tip - with no reference to a bonus, as Foodora used to offer for a certain number of trips.
The company provides the e-bikes, on top of that there is a monthly surcharge for the internet fees of a maximum of 15 euros.
The young Berlin competitor Flink also pays 10.50 euros plus bonus according to the job description, as does the restaurant portal Lieferando.
The takeaway daughter and her driver have been fighting over working conditions for several years.
This could now also apply to gorillas.
Couriers from the start-up unite under the Gorillas United initiative, which is loudly attracting attention on Twitter.
When there was freezing temperatures and snow in Germany at the beginning of February, the online supermarket said it was discontinued for security reasons.
According to the driver community, this was not done out of empathy, but because the colleagues refused to go shopping on the icy and snow-covered streets.
Gorillas denied this when asked by the supermarket blog.
Gorillas couriers plan works council
The drivers have published a log of a meeting with the fleet manager via Twitter.
According to this, the employees complain, among other things, that the driver app can track the location even when they are not working.
Gorillas contradicts this according to the transcript.
In addition, the payment and communication are bad, suggestions for improvement are not accepted.
The weight of the purchases is too heavy.
Allegations similar to those made by the Lieferando couriers for years.
In an open letter to the founders, the association pointed out that the employees wanted to form a works council and asked for the consent of the bosses.
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The creators of the Twitter profile Riders United Gorillas want to remain anonymous.
The texts on the short message service have an aggressive tone.
The profile picture shows a raised fist splitting the Gorillas logo.
Neither they nor the FAU trade union, which speaks not only for gorillas but also for drivers from Wolt and Lieferando, have so far responded to inquiries from “Gründerszene”.
A courier who is said to have campaigned strongly for the rights of colleagues and wanted to set up the works council has now been fired.
“Gründerszene” spoke to a few drivers who were satisfied with the working conditions.
It cannot be determined whether the criticism applies across the company or only to a small group.
From corporate circles it is said that these should be individuals.
The fact is: gorillas are growing.
Investors see potential in the business model.
The Turkish pioneer Getir, on which the Berlin founder Sümer orientated himself, only collected 250 million euros (300 million dollars) this week.
Sequoia and other shareholders valued Getir at 2.2 billion euros (2.6 billion dollars).
The even older model Gopuff from the USA was valued this week at 7.6 billion euros (nine billion dollars) and got one billion euros (1.15 billion dollars).
So there is still a lot of room for improvement for gorillas.