Deliveroo loses £232m in 2018
Online food delivery business Deliveroo's global pre-tax losses widened by more than £30m to a total of £232m in 2018, its latest results show.
The loss came despite a £200m increase in revenue for the business during the year to a total of £476m.
Nonetheless, the six-year-old company put a positive spin on the figures, highlighting the fact that its 72% increase in global revenue on the previous year, and a 42% rise in gross profit to £91m both outstripped the 16% rise in pre-tax losses.
Deliveroo invested heavily in its business in 2018, entering two new markets – Taiwan and Kuwait - and doubling the number of towns and cities in which it operates to 250. It now claims to work with 80,000 restaurants around the world and pointed to independent analysis by Capital Economics which suggests it has helped UK restaurants to boost sales by £1bn in 2018, including £320m for independent restaurants.
It also more than doubled investment in its technology to £18m and spent £10m on free insurance for riders during the past year, as well as creating a ‘Rooversity' to give riders access to online courses for free.
Since the end of its 2018 results period, Deliveroo won a $575m (£468.7m) investment led by Amazon in May 2019, taking the total raised in the business to over $1.5bn (£1.2bn).
Meanwhile, is set to launch in another 50 towns and cities in the UK in 2019, and has acquired software design and development firm Cultivate to create a new "tech hub" in Edinburgh.
It has also launched a food procurement service to enable restaurants to purchase cooking ingredients at what it says are reduced prices via bespoke deals negotiated by the company.
Will Shu, Deliveroo co-founder and CEO said: "Deliveroo is growing from strength-to-strength and expanding across our markets as more and more people want amazing food delivered straight to their door.
"We're focused on our mission of becoming the definitive food company, and we've continued to invest heavily in expansion, technology and new products to meet this ambition. We are leading the field in innovation in food delivery, helping our restaurant partners to boost their sales and providing more well-paid work for riders.
