Getir: From Turkey to the World?

Is Getir the first global Turkish startup?

My name is Mikal — I’m an early-stage tech investor and I was born in Asia, grew up in Africa and now live in the US. Every week I break down a fast-growing business in an emerging market to understand its product, market and growth strategy.

This week I’m breaking down Turkish delivery giant Getir. This piece was originally published here.

The rise of ecommerce and delivery has been one of the biggest lifestyle shifts in urban centers over the past decade. This shift is a global phenomenon embodied by companies like DoorDash and Uber in the United States, Grab and GoJek in Southeast Asia and Deliveroo in Europe. But one lesser-known, but equally impressive startup powering this shift is Turkish delivery startup Getir.

Getir is a “quick commerce” company delivering groceries, food and essentials to consumers in as little as 10 minutes. Getir was founded in 2015 and since then has grown to impressive scale:

• 3.5 million active users
• 5x revenue growth in 2020
• Delivers over 75,000 packages a day
• GetirFood delivers from over 15,000 restaurants across Turkey
• Raised $470m to date
• Valued at over $2.6 billion

Today, Getir is the leader in the grocery delivery sector in Turkey. But Getir offers more than just grocery delivery and recently broadened its portfolio of services to include food delivery and rapid delivery of household essentials.

Market

Getir was founded in Turkey and is now available in 21 cities across Turkey. Impressively, Getir fulfills over 5 million orders a month in Turkey, a country of 83 million people. However, Getir’s ambitions stretch far beyond Turkey and in January of 2021 Getir launched in London, making the UK Getir’s second market after Turkey.

The UK does not mark the end of Getir’s geographic expansion plans. In fact, one of the major motivators for Getir’s most recent fundraise of $300m was to bankroll its…