The GoPuff assessment of the digital convenience store supported by SoftBank more than doubled in five months amid a pandemic increase in online food and grocery delivery.
The company announced Tuesday that it raised $ 1.15 billion in a valuation of $ 8.9 billion. This is a significant jump from GoPuff’s last round of financing in October 2020, which valued the company at $ 3.9 billion.
GoPuff said in a statement that it will use the new funds, which included an investment from SoftBank Vision Fund 1, to continue expanding in the United States and internationally. It also plans to invest in new technologies, talents and product categories, such as beauty products, baby products and healthier food offerings.
Philadelphia-based GoPuff was launched in 2013 by two university students from Drexel University. The company aims to tackle traditional convenience stores, offering a variety of basic household products, such as medicines and cleaning products for snacks and alcoholic beverages.
The company achieved early success among college students, but has since expanded its consumer base to other demographic groups, offering products that goPuff calls “instant needs”. Average GoPuff users are in their 30s, the company said.
“We have people from all walks of life asking for goPuff, whether it’s a mother who needs her diapers or baby products, or an animal owner who needs pet food,” said goPuff co-founder Rafael Ilishayev, a CNBC’s David Faber in an interview on “Squawk On the Street” Tuesday morning. “In fact, we are seeing faster growth year on year in these new innovative categories, instead of the traditional goPuff categories we launched with.”
The service is available to users in more than 650 cities in the USA. GoPuff says it is able to deliver goods to customers’ doors in about 30 minutes through contracted delivery drivers who collect items at the company’s 250 micro-service centers, which are rented by the company.
Its physical footprint also includes more than 160 stores operated by the alcoholic beverage chain BevMo !, which the company acquired for $ 350 million last November.
GoPuff is pulling more money after the coronavirus pandemic pushed millions of consumers into the home, prompting them to rely on online services for essential and non-essential goods. Food and grocery delivery services saw a large increase in activity, including goPuff, which registered a 400% increase in the volume of orders year-on-year between the first half of 2019 and the same period last year.
GoPuff is not the only company working to expand the scope of products that consumers can have on their doorstep in an hour or on the same day. Amazon’s 2-hour Fresh service, as well as DoorDash, Uber Eats, Postmates and Instacart, added categories such as groceries, personal care items and household items.