GreenBank Capital Inc (CSE:GBC) (OTCPINK:GRNBF) (FRA:2TL) said it has entered into a definitive investment agreement with Beelivery and has completed the first £1 million (C$1.71 million) tranche of its planned investment into that company.
UKTV Ventures, a commercial subsidiary of the UK’s national broadcaster BBC, is also a party to the agreement and under its investment into the grocery delivery platform it will be providing airtime for a forthcoming advertising campaign for Beelivery.
Toronto-based GreenBank had previously announced an agreement to acquire up to 25% of the issued capital of Beelivery.
READ: GreenBank Capital investee Beelivery gets £2 million investment from BBC subsidiary UKTV
The investments from GreenBank and UKTV will enable Beelivery to accelerate its business strategy as it seeks to gain 450,000 new customers over the next two years.
Unlike virtually all its competitors in the on-line grocery delivery sector, GreenBank said Beelivery's highly advanced and proprietary online ordering and logistics algorithms, combined with its low-cost model, have enabled the company to achieve profitability already, whilst the big names in the industry, including the likes of Ocado, continue to struggle to make their businesses profitable.
Beelivery, which specializes in quick delivery, provides two delivery options - "now" which offers delivery within 60 minutes and 'today' which offers delivery slots within the following 24-hour period. Orders can be placed by customers, and deliveries are carried out by a team of independent drivers, 24/7, 365 days a year.
Beelivery sources its line of products from any grocery outlet local to the customer and unlike most of its competitors Beelivery has more than 90% nationwide coverage in the UK and average delivery times of only 46 minutes.
"Beelivery is an exceptional business with real potential to become best in class in the very fast-growing and global online grocery delivery market,” GreenBank CEO David Lonsdale said in a statement. “We are delighted to be involved with such an exciting business run by a first-class team and we are very much looking forward to helping them achieve their ambitious goals".
Beelivery was founded in 2015 and just under £8 million of orders were handled in the last financial year to September 2020 generating a profit at an EBITDA level. Having demonstrated the robustness of its business model Beelivery is using the GreenBank and UKTV investments to help rapidly scale the business, with management targeting orders of over £370 million in the year to end September 2023.
GreenBank is entitled to appoint one director to the board of Beelivery, and pending such appointment an observer will attend meetings of the board.
Once GreenBank has completed the second tranche of its investment of £1.5 million, which is due to happen by the beginning of September 2021, Beelivery has agreed to appoint GreenBank as its merchant bank with a view to listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange or another international exchange as soon as possible, and to act as adviser on any future fundraisings.
"The significant investments from UKTV and GreenBank will allow us to accelerate our growth, continue to increase brand awareness, as well as bring new innovations to our unique offering for our customers,” Beelivery CEO Lee Parkinson said.
GreenBank is a next-generation merchant banking business with offices in Toronto, Dallas, New York, and London.
Contact the author at stephen.gunnion@proactiveinvestors.com