The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: The Insane Story of Glovo: Selling 30% of the Company for €100K | The McDonalds Deal That Saved Them | Running out of Money Three Times | Burning $1M Per Day | Being Acquired for $2.2BN with Oscar Pierre, Founder @ Glovo
Wed, 26 Feb 2025
Oscar Pierre is the Founder and CEO @ Glovo, the food delivery site that will get you anything you want to your doorstep. This story is insane, the company was started by Oscar 11 years ago, in their pre-seed round they sold ⅓ of the company for €100K. The company was later saved by a deal they made with McDonald's. The company nearly ran out of money on several occasions, one time the funding round came from the CEO of Rakuten who Oscar met an FC Barcelona drinks. Today, they are a part of DeliveryHero who acquired them for $2.2BN, they have delivered 1BN orders and have almost 60M customers. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 04:27 Starting with Nothing 07:30 The First Funding Round: Selling ⅓ of the Company for €100K 09:23 Marketplace Dynamics and Expansion 15:34 The McDonald's Deal That Saved the Company 18:38 Running out of Money Three Times: Fundraising Hell 25:57 International Expansion: What Worked 29:25 Lessons from Failures: What Brazil Taught Us 31:36 How to Win in Emerging Markets 32:02 The Burn Rate (Burning $1M per day) and Investor Concerns 33:29 Scaling Challenges and Competitor Threats 34:29 The Biggest BS Elements of Company Values 35:40 How I Ruined the Culture of the Company 41:14 Layoffs and Talent Management 42:06 Biggest Lessons from M&A 44:41 The Future of Quick Commerce 45:38 Acquisition by Delivery Hero 48:56 Post-Acquisition Reflections 54:47 The CEO on Trial and Facing Prison
Chapter 1: What is the story behind Glovo's founding?
How was the first version of the app?
And I was shitty. It didn't work. But I had something to start showing to investors. I had some mockups.
Okay. So you have something to show... Sorry. Fuck the schedule. You have something to start showing to investors. And then what happens? You go and raise like a pre-seed seed round?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was so young. I knew nothing about, of course, VC. And you will find this very funny, but the first round was valued at 280k free money and we raised 100k.
Wow.
And with that, the first business plan and the first deck that we had took us to profitability and to a sustainable company.
So 100K at 380 post.
Yeah.
Wow. Okay, so you raised the 100K. What happens then? We build out the app again, but it's much more fully fledged. I mean, 100K is not much.
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Chapter 2: How did Glovo secure its first funding and the McDonald's deal?
What about the way that your parents brought you up? Will you do differently deliberately with your children?
Look, I was lucky that my parents had money. We've never lacked anything at home. But at the same time, I saw my father working until 2 a.m. every single day, every single day. And that, I think, marked me a lot. I think that's also the other very important reason to keep working, to show the example to your kids.
I'm not a father yet, but I know that when I am, it's really important that your kids see you suffering every day. Or not every day, but that they don't see that it's easy life all the time.
One of the most famous CEOs in the world said to me once that if you want to learn to be a good parent, just watch the Discovery Channel on National Geographic and watch the elephants. The little ones learn by watching the big ones. You learn by doing. And so if you want your kids to work hard, you've got to work hard.
yeah exactly can i ask you did having a bit of a safety net like not worrying about money help you as an entrepreneur i always kind of say i'm not an entrepreneur i started my family was kind of middle class but like i lived at home in a nice home mom paid for food i was going to be a law scholar if mine failed i'd just be like a middle-class lawyer wasn't that risky
I think it helped me in having irrational ambition and taking a lot of risks to the point that we almost shut down the company three times because I was always pushing to the limit so much. Because back to your point, I guess that I wasn't that scared about death. No, I didn't have kids. I didn't have a house. For the first four years, I was living with my parents.
So I was like, look, I mean, I would be terribly sad, but my life didn't depend on it.
You can be CEO of any other company for a day. What would you be CEO of and why?
I think Vinted. I think about Vinted a lot. Yeah. Because I like big consumer platforms. And of course, I like the impact they have.
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