Delivery Hero has cemented its status as Europe’s most prolific launchpad for startup founders, with former staffers building 150 companies valued at €7.5 billion combined, according to fresh data from Dealroom.co.
Those ventures now employ 11,000 people worldwide and have pulled in €4.4 billion in venture funding. Since 2020, the collective enterprise value of these alumni-founded businesses has quadrupled, making Delivery Hero the continent’s top founder factory by capital raised.
The analysis spans alumni from Delivery Hero’s Berlin headquarters plus its European brands: efood, foodora, foodpanda’s European arm, foody, Glovo, and Yemeksepeti. It even includes people who departed before Delivery Hero acquired those companies.
Germany anchors much of this value. Berlin-based startups account for €4.9 billion of the network’s total worth, while roughly 3,700 of the 11,000 jobs sit in Germany. The Berlin HQ alone has produced 42 next-generation companies worth €4.4 billion, which raised €3.5 billion in VC and employ about 6,800 people globally.
Across Europe, Delivery Hero ranks first by alumni-founded startup count and VC raised, fifth by combined enterprise value, and fourth by jobs created. foodora alumni have founded 49 startups across France, Spain, Scandinavia, and Central Europe worth €2.3 billion combined. Former Glovo employees have launched 35 startups valued at €461 million total.
Food delivery remains the dominant sector with 33 alumni-founded companies, though enterprise software trails closely with 32 and boasts the strongest early-stage talent pipeline. Health and transportation each count 19 startups, with fintech, marketing, real estate, and energy also represented.
The founder transition happens quickly. Alumni spent a median of three years at Delivery Hero before leaving to build companies. Fifty-three percent founded firms after one to three years, and a third launched within six months of departing. Only 29 percent held C-level, director, or VP roles beforehand. Operations and technical teams produced the most founders.
Funding outcomes look strong too. Of alumni companies that raised seed rounds between 2010 and 2020, 47 percent later secured Series A funding versus roughly 30 percent of startups overall. Twenty-eight percent reached Series B and 11 percent hit Series C or beyond.
The ripple effect extends further. Employees at startups founded by Delivery Hero alumni have created around 80 second-generation ventures, with Gorillas and Circ emerging as prolific founder sources. More than 30 former Delivery Hero staffers have moved into venture capital, joining or founding over 35 investment firms that raised €7.3 billion since 2020 and participated in deals worth over €79 billion.
“In the fifteen years since we founded Delivery Hero, we have proudly emerged as the leading network that feeds capital, founders, operators and experience back into the European ecosystem,” said Niklas Östberg, co-founder and CEO.
Yoram Wijngaarde, founder and CEO of Dealroom.co, added: “Delivery Hero stands out as a central anchor in this network, which spans all over Europe.”
