A look at the frantic dealmaking behind Europe's instant grocery startups like Gorillas and Flink, as investors see a classic land grab for the top position
Financial Times : Tweets: @vivifriedgut and @tim Tweets: @vivifriedgut : yes. But is any of it sustainable or even desirable? https://www.ft.com/... Tim Bradshaw / @tim : A frantic summer of transatlantic dealmaking for rapid grocery apps: inside the manic speed-dating between Gorillas, Flink, DoorDash, Gopuff & Delivery Hero. Both German startups are now valued at $2.1bn - but only after their $5bn merger talks fell apart https://www.ft.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This FT report sits at the peak of the funding cycle that CNBC had already tallied months earlier, when VC-backed rapid grocery firms in Europe had raised $1.56B in 2021 alone. The dealmaking it documents — Gorillas and Flink speed-dating DoorDash, Gopuff, and Delivery Hero, including a ~$5bn merger between the two German startups that collapsed even as each landed a $2.1bn valuation — was investors trying to buy their way to the top spot rather than fund five separate land grabs.
First-order effects
- Gorillas and Flink stay independent at $2.1bn each, while the failed merger leaves US suitors DoorDash, Gopuff, Delivery Hero — and earlier Amazon and Gopuff's competing takeover bids for Flink — still circling European assets.
Second-order effects
- The burn rate behind these valuations surfaces quickly elsewhere in the coverage: six NYC rapid-delivery startups that raised $5.5B+ since 2020 were averaging losses above $20 per order, per WSJ, forcing every player to choose between more capital or consolidation.
- Gorillas' own trajectory confirms the squeeze — after its October $1B raise, sources told Bloomberg it was cutting staff, reducing free-spending policies, and weighing warehouse closures, the cost discipline a $2.1bn valuation alone couldn't avoid.
Third-order effects
- The land-grab logic resolves structurally: by early 2023 the market had consolidated down to just three players — Getir, Flink, and Gopuff — exactly the outcome the dealmaking summer was racing toward.
- If the pattern holds, instant-grocery becomes an oligopoly decided by capital endurance rather than operational edge, with sub-scale entrants exiting or being absorbed once growth-stage money stops subsidizing per-order losses.
The trend: Rapid grocery delivery is consolidating from a crowded, heavily subsidized land grab into a handful of capitalized survivors, with M&A replacing venture funding as the competitive weapon.