With over 7,000 products, Oda raises 223 million euros to dominate the European online grocery market

Foreign media reported that Norwegian online grocery startup Oda (formerly Kolonial) has just raised 223 million euros from SoftBank and Prosus .

Oda is valued at 750 million euros and has more than 7,000 products

This is Qda ’s largest financing round ever, and its post-money valuation reaches €750 million .

In 2020, Oda grew by more than 100% and had revenues of nearly 200 million euros . It now accounts for 70% of all online grocery orders in Norway .

In Norway, Oda currently stocks more than 7,000 products , comparable to those found in physical supermarkets , and offers same-day and next-day delivery services with delivery fees as low as 0 euros to 6 euros. Customers spend an average of 119 euros per order.

That puts it on par with other online grocery retailers , including Sweden’s MatHem , the Netherlands’ Picnic and the Czech Republic’s Rohlik, which offer a wide range of products . And, like those companies, Oda hopes to slowly take market share from traditional supermarkets and discounters.

In Norway, online grocery accounts for only 1.5% of the total grocery market. The UK leads Europe with an online penetration rate of 13%, followed by France at 7%. In Germany and Finland , the next markets Oda plans to expand into, the current market penetration rate is 1%.

Expanding into Germany and Finland to further capture the European online grocery market

With the new funding, Oda plans to be operational in Finland by the end of the year , and has already started building its first warehouse in Finland. It hopes to launch in Germany in 2022 , and has begun negotiations with suppliers in both countries.  

As with Norway, it will serve customers who live within a two-hour drive of its warehouses. That makes Germany a rather tempting market , not least because its grocery market is worth €200 billion .  

“Germany is attractive because its population is evenly distributed,” Munthe-Kaas said. “With one warehouse, we can easily cover about seven million people . That’s two or three times the amount of work we can do in our warehouse in Norway. ”

However, Oda is not the only online grocery startup to raise a lot of capital to eat into some of the German grocery market. This year, Berlin-based grocery startups Flink and Gorillas raised $52 million and 245 million euros , respectively, to capture the German online grocery market.

In response, co-founder and CEO Karl   Munthe-Kaas isn’t too worried about Flinks and Gorillas. “ It’s actually impossible for those startups to beat our distribution efficiency,” he said .

Because Oda has developed the world's most efficient warehouse system. Now, its UPH (average units handled per man-hour) exceeds 212 , which is far ahead of the competition. It is reported that the UPH of Ocado, a leader in grocery technology in the UK , was 168 in 2019 .

It seems that online grocery retailer Oda is confident that it will gradually occupy the European online grocery market.

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Online Grocery