Glovo to Buy Spanish, Portuguese Grocery Delivery Companies

(Bloomberg) -- Glovo has agreed to buy two grocery delivery companies following a 450 million-euro ($531 million) fundraising round earlier this year. 

The company has struck a deal to acquire Lola Market, expanding its service in Spain, and Portugal-focused Mercadao, Glovo said in a statement on Tuesday. The Barcelona-based company didn’t disclose the value of either transaction. 

Glovo, like its peers, has been expanding its quick-delivery service and operations in Europe through a series of acquisitions. The company bought Delivery Hero SE’s operations in eastern Europe for 170 million euros earlier this year. Companies in the industry have benefited from a surge in demand for fast deliveries of groceries, convenience products and restaurant food, and Glovo said it expects the gross transaction value on its q-commerce division to triple, surpassing a 1 billion-euro run rate, by the end of 2022.

Still, legislators have been cracking down on the gig-worker model that many of these apps rely on. Glovo, which is Spain’s largest online delivery platform, is facing a change in legislation as last month Europe’s first law to turn delivery riders into employees came into force in Spain. 

Lola Market and Mercadao will maintain their identities and operate independently of Glovo. Gonçalo Soares da Costa, Mercadao’s chief executive officer, will be in charge of both companies, which will initially expand in Poland and Italy. 

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