Berlin — The express deli­very service Flink was on the verge of bank­ruptcy, and now 150 million euros are repor­tedly flowing into the Berlin-based company as part of emer­gency finan­cing. Rewe and other inves­tors injec­ted fresh capi­tal into the company, as first repor­ted by Mana­ger Maga­zin. To date, the round has been stee­red by exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding the US deli­very service Doordash and the super­mar­ket chain Rewe. Rewe is also said to be leading the current finan­cing with more than 50 million euros. In the process, the valua­tion, which not long ago was 2.5 billion euros, has fallen consider­a­bly. As a result, inves­tors now value the deli­very service at only around one billion euros.

Tension behind the scenes with Mubadala

One of the most important share­hol­ders is no longer invol­ved: the sove­reign wealth fund Muba­d­ala from Abu-Dhabi was not only one of the major inves­tors in Flink, but also one of the largest share­hol­ders in its compe­ti­tor Getir and would bene­fit from a merger of its investments.

With the current funding, Muba­d­ala is unli­kely to have been willing to provide further capi­tal to Flink as a stan­da­lone company. The state fund is no longer invol­ved in the 150 million round.

Steady staff reductions

It had alre­ady become appa­rent during the take­over of the Berlin-based adver­sary Goril­las by the Turkish company Getir that the express deli­very services would be facing diffi­cult times after the end of the pande­mic. None of the provi­ders was able to deli­ver signals that they would soon be profi­ta­ble. Even massive staff cuts appar­ently did not bring suffi­ci­ent relief — accor­ding to rese­arch by Mana­ger Maga­zin, more than 8,000 employees at Flink alone are said to have lost their jobs in the past year.

Now comes another drastic step to cut costs. Nevert­hel­ess, Flink CEO and co-foun­­der Oliver Merkel has appar­ently enti­ced inves­tors to cut costs even further. Around one hundred of the appro­xi­m­ately 600 employees are to be laid off, as repor­ted by Mana­ger Magazin.

In order to make itself leaner for poten­tial inves­tors, Flink filed for insol­vency for its Austrian subsi­diary at the end of 2022. At the time, the company explai­ned that the region would not be profi­ta­ble in the fore­seeable future. More than 160 people — both drivers and office employees — lost their jobs at that time. Expan­sion into other count­ries is not in sight. Instead of expan­ding, Flink emptied dozens of depart­ment stores in previous months and adver­ti­sed on real estate portals.