The founders of Turkish food delivery startup Getir are suing Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala for $700m over claims that the firm did not hand over promised assets when it took control of the business in 2024.
The lawsuit, filed in London on Friday, comes a week after Getir, which was once valued at nearly $12bn, was sold to Uber.
Nazim Salur and Serkan Borançılı, who founded Getir in 2015, claim that they suffered “significant loss” after Mubadala allegedly failed to honour an agreement to transfer a group of assets to them.
Mubadala first invested in Getir in 2021. The firm led the company’s $768m Series E round in 2022, at the height of the company’s expansion across Europe. The round gave Getir its peak valuation of $11.8bn.
In 2024, as the market cooled and Getir retreated from European markets, Mubadala took control of the grocery company, resulting in a bitter courtroom battle between the fund and the startup’s founders. Mubadala led a $250m cash injection into Getir, in exmodify for a control of the company’s food and grocery business in Turkey.
The founders allege the deal stated that Getir’s other assets, aside from the food delivery arm, would be houtilized in a separate business, in which they would have a stake.
Salur and Borançılı allege in the lawsuit that only the most unprofitable assets were transferred: FreshDirect, a grocery service in New York, and n11, a shopping platform. They claim they are still owed assets such as Getir Finance, a fintech business which was valued at $510m last year.
Sifted has approached Mubadala, which is yet to file its defence to the court, for comment.
It’s not the first spat between the Abu Dhabi fund and the founders of Getir. In January last year, a Dutch court heard an appeal initiated by the cofounders against the terms of the restructuring.
Their appeal was rejected, with the court finding that Mubadala had acted in the interests of the company, which was facing immediate bankruptcy.
According to Dutch publication FD, which was present in court, Mubadala’s lawyer declared Getir would run out of money in two weeks’ time if the new deal did not pass and inject the emergency $50m into the business.
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