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Gorillas bikes in Rotterdam
Photo: Piroschka van de Wouw / REUTERS
End for gorillas: The Berlin express delivery service was sold to the Turkish competitor Getir this Friday.
The company was valued at 1.2 billion euros, insiders told manager magazin.
The gorillas investors will get around 14 percent of the shares in Getir as part of the deal.
Both companies initially did not comment on the takeover when asked.
One of the most dazzling German start-ups is changing hands.
Gorillas, founded by CEO Kağan Sümer in May 2020, reached a billion dollar valuation faster than any other company during the corona crisis.
The quick commerce provider's promise of being able to deliver within ten minutes had electrified investors.
Overall, Sümer was able to collect 1.1 billion euros from investors.
However, the business was highly unprofitable, and Gorillas wasted money.
The management - already highly controversial because of the way it treats employees - had tried to take drastic measures to reduce the service's burning of capital.
At the end of May, Sümer fired around half of the employees at his headquarters and subsequently closed several locations in European countries such as Italy, Spain and Belgium.
Since the end of last year, Sümer had been trying unsuccessfully to complete a new round of financing for the high-deficit start-up.
Most recently, the investors had kept the heavily loss-making service running with bridge financing of around 40 million euros.
The requirement for further financing was that Grollias should become profitable by the end of 2023.
At the same time, the investors had offered the company for sale to several rivals, including the Berlin competitor Flink.
Also Getir massively devalued
A sale of the service to the Turkish provider Getir had been speculated for weeks.
However, the conditions of the share swap are tough.
With the Gorillas takeover, Getir was also massively devalued.
The new getir, including gorillas, is now worth just $8.7 billion.
In the last round of financing in March 2022, the company was valued at just under $12 billion.
Getir was founded in Istanbul in 2015.
The service closed $768 million in funding in March 2022.
With the takeover, Getir can position itself as the market leader in Europe.
However, Getir is also still making a heavy loss.
