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The online meal delivery provider, Deliveroo, has selected London for a planned $7m (£5m) stock listing. UK government’s stock listing rules reform allows founders to keep more control over key decisions.
In January, the company raised $180 million (£130m) in fresh funding at a $7 million (£5m) valuations. The investment from existing shareholders was backed by Amazon, Durable Capital Partners, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, General Catalyst, Index Ventures and Accel. Deliveroo yet not announced the price information for its initial public offering.
London-based, Deliveroo was founded by Will Shu in the year of 2013. He was the first rider when they started operating in Chelsea, West London. In the last 8 years, Deliveroo has been rapidly growing and expanding its meal delivery services in two hundred cities in the UK and the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Australia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Hong Kong.
Leveraging the UK’s economy
The independent analysis says that Deliveroo supported 46,700 jobs in the UK, including 38,300 in the restaurant sector since its launch in the year 2013. There are thousands of riders who are associated and have worked for Deliveroo and are contributing to the UK’s economy.
Eyeing on rapid growth and expansion
The limited-time dual-class share structures provide Deliveroo more control over key management decision-making towards the company’s long-term strategic vision. The dual-class share structure limited to three years, after which the company will move to a traditional single-class share structure.
Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor said: “The UK is one of the best places in the world to start, grow and list a business – and we’re determined to build on this reputation now we’ve left the EU. That’s why we are looking at reforms to encourage even more high growth, dynamic businesses to list in the U.K.”
“So it’s fantastic that Deliveroo has taken this decision to list on the London Stock Exchange. Deliveroo has created thousands of jobs and is a true British tech success story. It is great news that the next stage of their growth will be on the public markets in the U.K.”
Will Shu, CEO of Deliveroo, said: “Deliveroo was born in London. This is where I founded the company and delivered our first order. London is a great place to live, work, do business and eat. That’s why I’m so proud and excited about a potential listing here.”
“At Deliveroo we want to be the definitive food company, bringing consumers the best choice of foods, giving restaurants new opportunities to grow their businesses, and providing riders with great work. We are always focused on developing the best proposition for consumers, restaurants and riders and look forward to bringing our service to new parts of the UK as we continue to grow.”
The online grocery industry is gaining momentum during the ongoing pandemic and as more and more consumers are habitual of shopping this way. According to research from Capgemini, 56% of UK consumers expect to get online deliveries at least once a week by 2021.
Also the country-wide lockdown has actually accelerated this shift and consumers have compelling reasons to switch from the neighborhood grocery stores to online.
London’s Weezy promises to deliver groceries in just 15 minutes. At the same time, Turkish online grocery delivery startup Getir is another company that has launched its rapid delivery service in London recently.
Read the full article here.
Amazon has opened its first checkout-free store outside of the US, a Fresh store powered by the "Just Walk Out" tech used in US Go stores. The shop, located in the West London borough of Ealing, offers Brits the same automated shopping experience that has been available to the US public since 2018. Instead of paying at manned or self-service checkouts, AI-powered sensors track the items you pluck from shelves and put in your basket and charges are automatically applied to your card at exit via the Amazon Go app.
"Our Amazon Fresh store in Ealing is the size of your typical convenience food store, which is roughly 2,500 square feet in the front of house," Amazon wrote in a FAQ. "We’re excited to bring this concept to the UK and look forward to opening additional stores in the Greater London area."
The online retailer is getting food supplies from local supermarket chain Morrisons, which it already has an existing relationship with on its Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service. It's also offering a new private food brand "By Amazon," with hundreds of products including "meat, poultry and fish, dairy, fruit and vegetables, bakery, freshly prepared meals and everyday essentials," Amazon said in a press release. While it's using Go-type checkout tech, it doesn't look like it will have the computer vision and AI-equipped Dash Carts for now.
Word on the UK store first broke in 2017 — just months after Amazon unveiled the Go concept — when it registered a pair of slogans with the country's Intellectual Property Office. But, since then the expansion has been cloaked in secrecy while Amazon focused on Go's rollout in the US, where it now boasts around 25 of the physical stores, including a bigger supermarket in Seattle.
With the e-commerce giant riding a tidal wave of orders during the pandemic, the latest unveiling won't go unnoticed by its UK rivals. Not to be left behind, local supermarket Sainsbury's introduced its own cashierless grocery store in 2019 in the hopes of building on the popularity of self-scan shopping.
UK chancellor Rishi Sunak is set to announce a change in the contactless limit from £45 to £100 in his budget speech this week.
Industry body UK Finance is believed to have pitched the increase to the Treasury, where it is being seen as symbolic of Britain's ability to make its own rules following its split from the European Union.
The limit was only raised from £30 to £45 in April, partly in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has prompted a surge in tap and pay at the expense of cash.
In September, contactless accounted for 64% of all debit card transactions and 46% of credit card transactions, according to UK Finance.
The Financial Conduct Authority announced in January that it was conducting a consultation on a possible lift in the contactless limit. "It’s important that payments regulation keeps pace with consumer and merchant expectations," noted the FCA. "Recognising changing behaviour in how people pay, as part of a wider consultation, we will shortly be seeking views on amending our rules to allow for a possible increase in the contactless limit to £100."
Sky News is reporting that some major banks have sounded the alarm bell over the proposed new ceiling, preferring a more cautious staggered increase to curb the risk of fraud.
Contactless payments first arrived in the UK in 2007, with a £10 ceiling which has been gradually increased over the last decade.
The password ‘solarwinds123’ was publicly accessible on GitHub for more than a year and brought to the firm's attention in 2019
SolarWinds executives have blamed a former intern for leaking a weak company password that was publicly accessible on the internet for more than a year.
The password ‘solarwinds123’ - a critical lapse in password security - was publicly accessible through a private GitHub repository from June 2018, before this was addressed in November 2019.
SolarWinds CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna claimed this password was the fault of an intern who’d set it on one of their servers in 2017, speaking at a hearing before the US House Committees on Oversight and Homeland Security.
The password was first discovered in 2019 by security researcher Vinoth Kumar, who told Reuters that it had been set to grant access to the company's update server.
To read the full article, click here.
Rochdale, Greater Manchester-based WCCTV is a leading Equipment-as-s-Service provider of redeployable wireless surveillance products. The company has three offices across the UK, with locations in Edinburgh and Luton alongside its Rochdale headquarters, with a fourth base in Texas, United States.
Now, WCCTV announced that it secured fresh funding of £30M in an investment round led by LDC. With this funding round, LDC will own a minority stake in the UK-based company. As a result of the partnership, LCD will accelerate WCCTV’s ambitious plans to expand into the domestic and international markets and support the launch of new products and services.
The round was led by LDC’s Head of the North West, Dale Alderson, alongside Investment Director Richard Ibbett and Grant Goodwin. Notably, Dale and Richard will also join the board as Non-Executive Directors as part of the deal.
The investment in WCCTV, follows the recent investments of LDC in digital learning provider Omniplex and the Cheshire-headquartered manufacturer of accessories for light commercial vehicles, Rhino Products.
To read the full article click here.
Skymind, a London UK-based open-source enterprise deep-learning software company, announced the first cohort of investments from its $800m AI fund.
The cohort comprise six startups that use AI to enhance the performance of different industries and sectors across the globe, from farming and medicine to policing and education.
These investments include:
- Nexent, a full service business intelligence dashboard provider.
- xpress.ai, an AI marketplace that focuses on delivering non-invasive plug and play AI modules for businesses that integrate with SAAS and PAAS, making AI adoption instant.
- Terra Sentinel, an AI consultancy that offers tailored AI innovations that can help create smart urban centres and sustainable, green cities.
- CertifAI, a provider of AI education with the aim to empower society with practical AI capabilities.
- Farmetrix, a provider of AI solutions for the agricultural sector, helping farmers to improve their efficiency in plantation management and offering alternatives to environmentally hostile farming practises.
- Skyfense, a provider of AI innovation to keep citizens safe and to improve policing.
Skymind’s AI fund backs promising new AI companies, training and academic research. The team plans to invest in more companies in 2021, particularly across Europe and specifically in the UK.
Led by Shawn Tan, CEO, Skymind is an open-source enterprise deep-learning software company and a dedicated AI ecosystem builder, enabling companies and organisations to launch their AI applications and bring their business cases to life. The company provides clients with supported access to Eclipse Deeplearning4j and other open source tools as well as global capital funding and talent development.
Skymind is headquartered in London, UK, with offices across Asia and Europe.
In a recent development, Klarna, an eCommerce payment solutions platform for merchants and shoppers, is expected to raise $1 billion (approx £705 million) at a $31 billion (approx £22 billion) valuation. To date, the company has raised $2.1 billion (approx £1.4 billion).
Tripling its valuation
This rumor comes six months after the Swedish fintech company secured $650 million (approx £458 million) in equity funding from investors led by Silver Lake, at a valuation of $10.65 billion (approx £7.5 billion). With the latest round, the company is tripling its valuation.
Funding round ahead of IPO
According to Bloomberg, the existing investors are participating ahead of a potential public listing next year, and the round could be announced in the coming days.
This funding will make Stockholm-headquartered fintech, Europe’s most valuable fintech startup after Checkout.com, which was valued at $15 billion (approx £10.5 billion).
On the other hand, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna CEO has indicated previously the company would go public in the near future but didn’t give any exact information.
Collaboration with Ingenico
A few days back, Klarna announced a strategic collaboration with Ingenico (part of Worldline, the European leader in the payment and transactional services industry, since late 2020) to make Klarna’s online payment solutions accessible to even more European merchants.
Mytheresa, the newly listed online luxury group, has posted Q2 sales up 32.9% year-on-year as it capitalised on the shift to digital brought about by the global pandemic.
The German-based and New York listed group achieved net sales of €158.6m in the quarter ending 31 December 2020, with an adjusted net income of €14.8m, as compared to €6.4m in the prior year period.
It also recorded a growth in active customers by 28.2% year-over-year to 569,000 and a record high of first-time buyers (over 100,000 new customers) during the period.
In the six months to the end of December it achieved a net sales increase of 30.4% year-on-year to €285m with an adjusted net income of €20.1m, compared to €10m in the prior year period.
Mytheresa CEO Michael Kliger said: “Even considering clear tailwinds by the COVID pandemic, the strong results of the second quarter of fiscal year 2021 confirm once more our strategy and unique business model: Mytheresa is about inspiration not aggregation. It is about an unrivaled, highly curated offering, a focus on high-end luxury customers, sophisticated technologies and a first-class in-house managed service experience.”
Kliger continued: “Our full commitment to acquire and retain the best customer base in the market creates a reinforcing cycle of outstanding brand relationships that feed a superior customer value proposition to generate strong customer economics, which allows us to stay true to our strategic focus. Therefore, we will continue to deliver growth as well as profitability.”
The business, which carried out its $2.2bn float on NYSE in January, is forecasting met sales in the range of €565m to €580m, representing 26% to 29% growth, in the full year to the end of June 2021. Adjusted EBITDA should be in the range of €45m to €48m, representing 27% to 36% growth.
ASOS, Boohoo, Gymshark and THG are among the founder members of a new business association designed to champion the UK e-commerce sector and support the efforts of physical retailers in their transition to a digital-first model.
Also forming part of the UK Digital Digital Business Association are AO World and Ocado, which was been set up by Boohoo and THG non-executive director Iain McDonald.
Appearing on Sky News today, McDonald said that the members of the new association are set to create 10,000 jobs in the UK this year and invest £1bn.
“By and large these are also highly paid and highly skilled jobs,” McDonald told the broadcaster adding that the e-commerce market could help support the “levelling up” of the UK economy with Gymshark creating jobs in the Midlands, Boohoo and THG based in Manchester and ASOS basing its warehouse in Barnsley, for instance.
While the news headlines in retail have been dominated by physical store closures and the buying up of traditional physical retailers by online players, McDonald said it was important to highlight the positive contribution that etailers make to the economy.
“We formed this organisation in the first place to cast a light on what is a very good news story for the UK economy and that is the growth of the online sector. The online sector has been contributing very positively to the UK economy for well over a decade now.
“It’s important to distinguish what we do from the US tech giants; there’s been a lot of disquiet about the fact that they’re not paying their fair share of corporation tax for example. All of our members of the UKDBA are proudly British and pay their taxes in the normal way,” he added.
McDonald conceded that the creation of 10,000 jobs did not come near to replacing the tens of thousands of jobs lost from the collapse of companies such as Arcadia and Debenhams, which employed 25,000 staff between them.
Arcadia’s brands were split between ASOS, Boohoo and City Chic Collective, while Debenhams went to Boohoo. No physical retail stores were saved in the deals.
McDonald added however that the jobs being created by e-commerce were well paid roles in the fields of technology, data and cyber security, for instance.
He also said that the demise of some big-name physical retailers could be tracked further back than the emergence of etail. “It’s a very complicated picture and if you look at the problems of the high street I think that it pre-dates the online sector and in fact you really need to go back to the growth of out of town retailing and food-based superstores in out of town parks,” he said.
In a statement marking the launch of the UKDBA, McDonald went on to say: “Our membership has helped underpin the UK as the most advanced e-commerce market in Europe.
“The British online industry is one of the UK’s greatest success stories and the UKDBA is here to champion our members, their customers’ interests, providing them a voice in a rapidly evolving world.
“With the face of e-commerce reshaped, UKDBA members will be crucial in driving the UK’s economic recovery from Covid-19 putting customers at the heart of their ambitions, whilst supporting the current government’s efforts to create a technology driven global facing economy.”
The creation of the UKDBA comes amid a growing debate about whether etailers should be subject to a digital sales tax to level up the playing field with physical retailers, who bear an unfair burden when it comes to business rates.
Treasury officials are reported to be hosting secret meetings this week with business leaders on how an online sales tax could work. Tesco has led the call for an online sales tax of 1% saying that its introduction could lead to a 20% reduction in business rates.
Next chief, Lord Simon Wolfson, has suggested higher rates for warehouses from where online retailers fulfil their orders, along with a 35% reduction in business rates for physical retailers.
Wolfson is one of a number of retailers to speak out against an online sales tax, which many fear would just be passed on the consumer or simply add more cost to businesses who trade both on- and off-line.