Grocery Startup Buymie Secures €5.8M Funding As It Expands To The UK

By Mirianna la Grasta | @mirilagrasta

Same-day grocery delivery app Buymie has recently raised €5.8M (£5.2M) in new funding. The startup, based in Dublin, Ireland, partners with major food retailers, including Tesco and Lidl, and small ones too, and promises to deliver your chosen groceries to your door in as little as one hour.

Buymie has arrived in the UK only this May, allowing more than 200,000 households across Bristol to order Co-op products from the app for same-day delivery. The company now plans to operate in 15 more cities following its latest funding round, and is currently looking to partner with more food retailers. The raise was led by Wheatsheaf Group, the food and agriculture investment branch of the Grosvenor Estate, together with existing investors like Sure Valley Ventures, Act Venture Capital, Haatch Ventures and HBAN.

This week’s raise is the second funding announcement by Buymie in only one year. Earlier, in April, the startup had already closed a €2.2M (£2M) Series A funding round, which brings the total amount of funding for the app to €10.6M (£9.5M). With the demand for quickly-delivered groceries growing worldwide, and restaurants still closed to the public across the UK, Buymie is among many of the companies and food retailers scaling up operations and expanding home delivery services.

In an interview with the Irish Times, earlier this April, the startup said they had been seeing the number of active customers on the app growing by 39 per cent month-on-month, accompanied by a 300 per cent increase in app downloads, which followed social-distancing advice during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The app lets users pick store preferences first and scroll through the virtual aisles to select their groceries. Buymie personal shoppers will then take care of the order, selecting among the freshest produce available in-store and making sure all items arrive intact. The delivery options available to customers range from as little as one hour to seven days.

Buymie was founded in 2015 by Devan Hughes to bridge the gap between convenience and online grocery shopping. The company is focused on reducing the environmental impact of online groceries by reducing private car journeys, as well as packaging and single-use plastic in their deliveries. Their goal is to democratise access to online and on-demand quick deliveries for grocery retailers of all sizes.