Grocery Delivery Startup Oda Nabs $151M — At A Price

It can’t be avoided anymore: Companies have to raise money and face the music when it comes to valuations.

Norwegian grocery delivery business Oda announced on Tuesday it raised $151 million in equity from Kinnevik, Verdane and Summa Equity, bringing total funding to $630.5 million, per Crunchbase data.

The company turned a profit last year in Norway, but the new funding brought Oda’s valuation down from $900 million in 2021 to $353 million, according to Reuters. It’s far from the first company in this position, and in 2023 we’ll definitely see more companies like this.

Valuations are coming down

In 2020 and 2021, when the private markets were fertile with funding and companies began hitting the public markets at rapid pace, valuations were sky-high.

But that all changed at the end of 2021. Venture firms began tightening their purse strings, and startups once swimming in cash were suddenly hit with the realization that they needed to extend their runway on their own.

While fundraising was down, startups resorted to extension rounds and layoffs to avoid the inevitable: Their companies were, for the most part, overvalued, and pursuing new funding would lower those valuations.

After nabbing $233 million last April, Oda began turning to secondary market and convertible note financing. It’s not alone — Stripe, Instacart and Klarna are a few of more than 80 companies that saw a hit to their valuations back in August.

That’s not to take away from the significance of Oda’s $151 million. As far as grocery delivery funding goes, theirs is still one of the most sizable funding rounds of 2022. Micromobility and delivery startup Bolt raised $657 million in Series F funding back in January, per Crunchbase data. Weee, the grocery startup specializing in foods from east Asia, raised $425 million in February.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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