Foodpanda raises $100M more from Goldman Sachs and Rocket Internet

Rocket Internet’s food delivery service, Foodpanda, has landed a massive new round of funding led by Goldman Sachs.

The $100 million round for Berlin-based Foodpanda is the latest sign of how the global food delivery wars are attracting big bets. It comes on the heels of another $110 million round Foodpanda raised in March, an investment that helped it buy competing food-delivery services in India, Mexico, Russia, Brazil, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.

Foodpanda, spun out of Rocket’s startup factory, has now raised $310 million total. The company, which focuses on emerging markets, said it will use the latest funding to expand delivery and improve service in its 40 markets.

“We are very happy about the recent support from Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, with its deep expertise in online marketplaces, and which, together with our renowned group of investors, will allow us to build the leading mobile food delivery marketplace in emerging markets targeting over 3 billion consumers,” Ralf Wenzel, cofounder and CEO of Foodpanda Group, said in a statement. “The emerging markets represent the largest opportunity in online food delivery and we are committed to create the most convenient way for ordering and delivering food.”

Foodpanda is part of a much larger food-delivery focus for Germany’s Rocket. Back in February, Rocket invested $568 million in Delivery Hero, the Berlin-based e-commerce startup that facilitates delivery from local restaurants.

Delivery Hero was placed in a new unit of Rocket’s called the Global Online Takeaway Group. That group now also includes Foodpanda, which had previously been a rival of Delivery Hero in Asia. But the two companies have been trading assets and aligning operations.

Rocket also invested $149 million into Hello Fresh, the Berlin-based company that delivers meal kits and recipes to subscribers. Rocket now has a 52 percent in that company, which it originally incubated back in 2011. For the moment, Hello Fresh is not being rolled into Rocket’s new food business unit.