The ethos behind a Rocket Internet-backed company is as simple as it is successful – copy a proven idea, find the right people and expand it as fast as you possibly can to suffocate the competition. So you might term it impressive that food delivery platform foodpanda/hellofood is the most successful of the lot – having expanded into eight countries in the past two months for a grand total of 40, it now claims to be the fastest-growing venture in the Rocket empire.
The company has also reported year-on-year growth of 100 percent as January and February saw entries into Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Lebanon, Serbia, Kazakhstan and Uganda, with more promised later in the year. That, according to foodpanda – for which hellofood is an affiliated brand – means it is expanding into more countries more quickly than other Rocket companies.
Foodpanda launched in May 2012 and has so far secured $48 million (€34.5m) in funding from investors including Investment AB Kinnevik and Phenomen Ventures.
“We’re a global company,” said Ralf Wenzel, managing director of foodpanda/hellofood. “Getting to the new markets quickly gives us a huge competitive advantage. Our accelerated growth is proof that our model works and that our customers enjoy the convenience we offer to them.”
No doubt Rocket will hope that the lightning-quick – dare we say, Blitzkrieg – expansion will help foodpanda gain an inch on its rivals in the fiercely-contested online food ordering space.