We’re excited to take the wraps off our Seed investment in Fancy, the UK’s fastest-growing, on-demand convenience app, and to also announce that Fancy is being acquired by our portfolio company Gopuff, the leader in instant needs.
This transaction represents a terrific win-win-win for Fancy, Gopuff, and all shareholders. Most importantly, this inaugurates Gopuff’s entry into Europe — where we are fully confident that together with Fancy, it will continue to delight millions of customers.
Fancy, Fancy, Fancy
Last year, our global team studied the up-and-coming “Gopuff clones” emerging in Europe. As one of the earliest backers of Gopuff in 2016, we knew that the business model had the potential to be hugely successful in Europe and we were eager to identify the best emerging companies on the continent.
With Gopuff nearing 600 markets in the US, we turned our sights to the UK, Germany, France, Scandinavia, and other European countries for its next expansion effort. Over the years we have helped a number of our portfolio companies expand internationally (Farfetch, Groupon, and The RealReal) by leveraging the Headline team and network across Europe, Brazil, and Asia.
Over the course of a couple weeks, our team scanned the landscape and ultimately we landed on one shining example of a company that had the characteristics we were looking for: strong traction in several markets in the UK, hungry founders laser-focused on execution (not PR), and genuine customer obsession.
Armed with conviction in our new friends at Fancy, we led the Seed round in 2020 and I joined the board.
Congratulations, Fancy! And welcome to Europe, Gopuff!
It has been a distinct pleasure to partner with Co-Founders Arnie Englander and Jack Wilson. When we first introduced Arnie and Jack to Rafael and Yakir, Gopuff’s Co-Founders and Co-CEOs, they exclaimed that the Fancy founders “are just like us!” We are thrilled that these two amazing teams are joining forces to dominate the UK’s instant needs category.
A huge congratulations to everyone involved, and welcome to Europe, Gopuff!
Written by Jett Fein and Yusuf Janahi.