Russian food tech startup raises USD 46 million for a US launch

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 30 Jun 2021 by Alex Teddy
Russian entrepreneurs have raised the money to start their food delivery service in the United States. The Buyk service will be a US edition of Samokat. Samokat was started in St Petersburg in 2020. Samokat was then bought by Mail.Ru and Sber. Russia does not have a reputation for being the most entrepreneurial country in the world but over the last couple of years some of its most innovative businesses have launched successfully in Western countries. Buyk was created by Vyacheslav Bocharov, Rodion Shishko and Sergey Sulgin. Sulgin is also manager of the electric vehicle maker Arrival. Buyk is going to use tech created by Samokat. Sber will support it financially. Buyk wants to hire 100 people to run the operation and a further 500 to be couriers. The investors include three venture capital funds. Fort Ross (which is Sber backed), Citius and CM Ventures are involved as well as some undisclosed business angels.Buyk will launch in NYV in August 2021. It aims at 10 000 monthly orders by the end of 2021. Buyk has made agreement with dark stores - i.e. small scale distribution centers in residential zones. Food delivery is a densely packed field in New York. Buyk will be going head to head with Amazon and Walmart. It is hard to see what Buyk's USP is. The rivals already have name recognition that Buyk cannot hope to match. Nonetheless, Buyk is upbeat about its prospects.Buyk built itself up very fast in Russia. It went from being unknown to being a serious player in year. What works well in Russia might not be replicable in the USA. Labor costs are much higher in the United States so the Buyk business model will have to take that into account.

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