Korean eGrocer Kurly Raises $210M in Pre-IPO Round as Global Competition Heats Up

Around the world, investors remain hungry for food eCommerce solutions. Seoul, South Korea-based grocery delivery startup Kurly has raised 250 billion won, or about $210 million, in a funding round in advance of its initial public offering (IPO), Korea JoongAng Daily reported Monday (Dec. 20), bringing the company’s valuation to more than $3.3 billion.

Kurly’s IPO is slated for June 2022, and in late October, the company shared that it was expecting a value of $5.9 billion following the offering. Earlier this year, Kurly raised 225.4 billion won (just under $200 million) in Series F funding after a low valuation forced the company to reconsider its IPO plans for the United States.

Read more: Grocery Startup Kurly Seeks $5.9B Valuation After IPO

In the past few weeks, funds have been pouring in for online grocers and other food eCommerce solutions. On Friday (Dec. 17), London-based food and grocery delivery startup HungryPanda announced a $130 million Series D funding round. On Wednesday (Dec. 15), ezCater, an online marketplace startup that connects businesses with restaurants and caterers, announced its $100 million Series D-2 round. Earlier in the month, multi-continental instant grocery delivery startup Jokr announced its $260 million Series B haul.

Related news: Asian Food Delivery Startup HungryPanda Closes $130M Funding Deal

Corporate Food Solutions Startup ezCater Raises $100M

Express Delivery Startup Jokr Raises $260M at $1.2B Valuation

By the Numbers

Around the world, demand for digital grocery options is increasing. In the United States, according to data from PYMNTS’ study What Consumers Expect From Their Grocery Shopping Experiences, created in collaboration with ACI Worldwide, which featured a census-balanced survey of more than 2,300 U.S. adults, 34% of consumers now buy groceries online. Additionally, 18% prefer these eCommerce options to in-store shopping.

See also: Digital Features Can Help Grocers Win Over 43 Percent Of Shoppers

Moreover, findings from PYMNTS and ACI Worldwide’s What U.K. Consumers Expect From Their Grocery Shopping Experiences, which surveyed more than 2,500 U.K. adults about their grocery shopping preferences, show that 48% of grocery shoppers in the country use online channels. Additionally, 52% report purchasing groceries online more often than before the start of the pandemic.

You may also like: Digital Consumers Demand UK Grocers Improve Online, In-Store Shopping Experiences

What Insiders are Saying

“COVID brought in some online ordering from demographics, particularly some of the boomers who in the past have not been as oriented around online shopping, particularly for groceries,” Debbie Guerra, executive VP of on-demand merchant solutions at ACI Worldwide, told PYMNTS in an interview. “We’ve seen, with the millennials, the Gen-Zers, that they were already eager to continue to adopt digital payments. What has happened, though, is that as COVID continued, the ongoing shift to digital has become embedded.”

Amid this shift, businesses around the world are racing to become consumers’ go-to eGrocery service.

“[Online grocery] is maybe around the 10-ish percent [of the grocery market], and probably in the next three to five years, that will double or even triple, which gives a huge opportunity to many players,” Tyler Trerotola, U.S. co-founder of Jokr, a multi-contintental 15-minute grocery delivery startup, told Karen Webster in an interview. “Now, it will be a bit of a race as to who can capture that demand.”