Korean unicorn company Woowa Brothers Corp, the operator of leading food-delivery app ‘Baedal Minjok’, gets acquired by German food-delivery company Delivery Hero for $4 billion.

Woowa Brothers said in a statement on December 13 that the German company will acquire an 87% stake from the existing investors. The remaining 13% held by Woowa’s senior management, including its founder Kim Bong-jin, will be converted into Delivery Hero shares, making Kim the largest individual shareholder among the German firm’s leadership.

The statement also said that both the companies would create a joint venture in Singapore to tap the booming food delivery market in Asia. The deal would rank among the most significant inbound investments into South Korea’s technology sector, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Woowa Brothers, founded in 2010, is quite popular in Korea as per a report that 7 out of 10 people order food via apps. The startup joined the ‘unicorn’ billionaire club in early 2019 with investments worth $320 million in December 2018 from private equity firm Hillhouse Capital, US-based Sequoia Capital, and GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. As per a report by the company,  it had 36 million food-delivery orders in South Korea last month.

Delivery Hero, headquartered in Berlin, offers food delivery services in more than 400 cities globally, with about 22,000 employees, according to its website.
As part of the deal, Delivery Hero will further expand its Asian business by setting up a joint venture with Woowa in Singapore. Woowa’s founder Kim will be in charge of managing the Asian market, including South Korea, Vietnam, and Hong Kong. Asia accounted for about 38% of its total orders and around 32% of its total revenue in the third quarter, according to its latest financial report.

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