Wolt
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Wolt is a Finnish technology company known for its delivery platform for food and merchandise. On Wolt’s apps (iOS and Android) or website, customers can order food and other items from the platform’s restaurant and merchant partners, and either pick up their order or have it delivered by the platform’s courier partners.
In November 2021, DoorDash announced it would acquire Wolt.[1] The deal was completed in June 2022.[2]
History[edit]
Wolt was founded in 2014 by 6 founders, including Miki Kuusi, the former CEO of Slush. Wolt is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, and Miki Kuusi is the CEO. Later, two successive Slush CEOs, Riku Mäkelä and Marianne Vikkula, switched to Wolt as well.[3]
As of May 2021, Wolt operates in 23 countries and over 180 cities, including Tampere, Turku, Tallinn, Riga, Stockholm, Vilnius, Copenhagen, Prague, Brno, Baku, Tbilisi, Athens, Tel Aviv, Berlin, and Tokyo. Wolt has over 45,000 merchant partners, 90,000 courier partners and 12 million registered customers[4] (June 2021 figures).
Wolt has raised $856M[5][6][7] in funding from investors including ICONIQ Capital, Highland Europe, 83North, EQT Ventures, Tiger Global, DST Global, Prosus, KKR, Coatue, Inventure, Lifeline Ventures, Supercell founder & CEO Ilkka Paananen and Nokia Chairman Risto Siilasmaa, among others. The most recent funding round was announced in January, 2021.[8] As of November 2021,[update] Wolt has over 4,000 employees across its offices in 23 countries.[9]
Wolt was ranked second in the 2020 edition of the FT:1000 Europe's Fastest Growing Companies 2020 published by the Financial Times.[10]
In November 2021, it was announced that Wolt was being merged into DoorDash through an exchange of shares, giving Wolt shareholders a minority of shares in DoorDash for a deal worth US$8.1 billion.[1] In June 2022, DoorDash completed the takeover.[2]
Timeline[edit]
- 2014: Wolt was founded in Helsinki, Finland.
- 2015: Wolt first launched in Helsinki as pick-up only.
- 2016: Wolt added delivery to the platform and expanded to Sweden and Estonia. Wolt did some experimenting with self-driving delivery robots in Tallinn in cooperation with Starship Technologies.[11][12]
- 2017: Wolt launched in Denmark, Latvia and Lithuania.
- 2018: Wolt launched in Croatia, Czech Republic, Norway, Hungary, Georgia, Israel and Poland.
- 2019: Wolt launched in Serbia, Greece, Azerbaijan, Slovakia, Slovenia and Kazakhstan.
- 2020: Wolt launched in Japan, Cyprus, Malta and Germany.
- 2022: Wolt is acquired by Doordash.
References[edit]
- ^ a b Rana, Preetika (2021-11-09). "DoorDash to Buy Finland Food-Delivery Startup in Deal Valued Above $8 Billion". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-11-12.
- ^ a b Sterling, Toby (2022-06-01). "DoorDash sees tepid Q2 for Wolt as it completes $3.5 bln takeover". Reuters.
- ^ Lappalainen, Elina (2019-06-24). "Miki Kuusi nappasi entiset Slushin toimitusjohtajat Woltiin – Onko Slush-nuorisosta muodostumassa Suomen oma PayPal-mafia?" [Miki Kuusi captures former Slush CEOs in Wolt - Is Slush Youth Becoming Finland's Own PayPal Mafia?]. Talouselama (in Finnish). Retrieved 2019-10-22.
- ^ "About". Wolt. 2021-06-03.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Levinigston, Ivan (2021-01-25). "Wolt Gets $530 Million to Keep Pace With Food Delivery Boom". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Kahn, Jeremy (2019-06-19). "Finnish Food Delivery App Wolt to Hire 1,000 After New Funding". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2019-10-22.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Ohr, Thomas (19 June 2019). "Helsinki-based food delivery service Wolt raises $160 million to fuel international growth". EU-Startups. Retrieved 2019-10-22.
- ^ O'Hear, Steve (2021-01-25). "Wolt closes $530M round to continue expanding beyond restaurant delivery". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
- ^ "DoorDash Joins Forces with Wolt". ir.doordash.com. 9 November 2021.
- ^ Kelly, Maxine (2020-03-02). "FT 1000: the fourth annual list of Europe's fastest-growing companies". Financial Times. Retrieved 2020-03-23.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Wolt delivers the goods with robots". Good News from Finland. 28 November 2016.
- ^ "Starship hakkab Tallinnas toitu koju tooma". Arvutimaailm (in Estonian). 28 November 2016.