An online food delivery (OFD) platform is a website or mobile app that allows users to place food orders, make payments, and track delivery orders in real time. The earliest and most popular model in the industry is the aggregator model, in which the platform hosts menus from multiple restaurants for users to order from. Newer players in the industry have focused on niche segments such as prepared meals and meal kits. Already a growing segment, online food delivery gained immense traction recently due to restaurant closures and social distancing practices to mitigate the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The aggregator (general) segment is highly populated compared to the other niche segments, mostly due to its large potential market size. The segment is the popular pick for incumbents, which are mostly established tech players with an existing e-commerce presence. More established/mature disruptors are also largely present in the aggregator (general) segment, as well as in meal kit delivery.
The larger disruptors in the general aggregator segment - including DoorDash, Deliveroo, and Delivery Hero – are in growth stage, and have regularly raised capital from the equity and equity-linked issuance markets over the last two years. The general aggregator segment also has some newer startups in the pre-seed/seed stage using alternative business models (e.g., commission-free) or operating in niche sectors (e.g. high-end restaurants) to try to compete with larger incumbents and disruptors.
The majority of startups in the seed or pre-seed stages tend to be clustered in the meal kit delivery and prepared meal delivery segments, with these two segments also seeing more early stage start-ups.
As of July 2021, Doordash was the most dominant player in the space with a 57% share of the US online food delivery aggregator market, ahead of global leader UberEats (23%) and legacy US market leader Grubhub (16%). The company, which hadn’t reached 50-state penetration until 2019, took over as market leader from Grubhub that year, and has since further eroded Grubhub’s market share (from 40% in August 2018). However, market share is fragmented across US major cities. DoorDash, for example, is dominant in its home market San Francisco, as well as in Houston and Washington, while UberEats leads in Miami and gained significant market share in Los Angeles through its acquisition of disruptor Postmates in 2020. New York is pretty evenly split among the three players, in terms of share of sales.
In the more niche meal kit segment, German company HelloFresh is the largest player in the US, with an estimated market share of almost 60% as at September 2020. The company’s market share growth in the US has mainly come at the expense of rival Blue Apron, whose US market share has declined significantly (from over 20% in January 2019 to roughly 9% by July 2020), amid diminishing customer loyalty.
Subasket is the highest funded disruptor in the prepared meals segment. The company, which began operations as a meal kit provider, expanded into prepared meals in August 2020 followed by the launch of its full-service food delivery model in January 2021.
Ordermark (more than USD 150 million) and Deliverect (~USD 87 million) are the highest funded disruptors. Both companies operate online ordering platforms for restaurants and have surpassed the USD 1 billion order value mark.
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