They say lightning doesn’t strike twice, but in the case of Just Eat’s latest acquisition, that is exactly what has just happened: The online take-out ordering behemoth (and recently publicly listed company) has acquired Mexico’s SinDelantal.Mx to add to its Latin American presence and keep up the pressure on Rocket Internet’s Foodpanda.
SinDelantal.Mx’s founders, Diego Ballesteros and Evaristo Babé, also founded and sold Spain’s SinDelantal to Just Eat back in late 2012, for a price we originally pegged in the range of “a few million dollars”, but has since been revealed to be £2.5 million, according to Just Eat’s recent IPO filing.
This time around, things are equally opaque. Just Eat isn’t disclosing how much it’s paying for SinDelantal.Mx, although, according to the rumour mill, it’s thought to be one of the largest, if not the largest, online company exits in Mexico (Update: I’m hearing north of $20 million.)
Along with the Mexican startup’s founders, there’s an investor connection between the two SinDelantal deals, too. Seaya Ventures‘ Michael Kleindl was a previous backer of Spain’s SinDelantal, while in 2013 the Spanish VC invested $2.5 million into SinDelantal.Mx, making this the firm’s first exit.
Here’s what I wrote at the time of Seaya’s investment:
… with Just Eat not having a presence in Mexico (though it does operate in Latin America via Brazil), might we be seeing history repeating itself? The Spanish version of SinDelantal pre-existed Just Eat’s operation in Spain, after all, and we know how that panned out.
In addition, the official announcement notes, “thanks to the technology developed for SinDelantal.com in Spain, the launch has been carried out in a quick and agile way.” Can we say, rinse and repeat?
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Rince and repeat, indeed.
Meanwhile, Evaristo Babé and Diego Ballesteros are to become the new country managers for Just Eat’s Mexican operation.
Furthermore, the company claims the acquisition of SinDelantal.Mx positions it as the “clear market leader” in Mexico, with more than 3,000 restaurants and over 60,000 orders per month, though I would’t be surprised to see Foodpanda dispute this.
The Rocket Internet incubated company recently beefed up its Mexican presence by acquiring PedidosYa, SeMeAntoja, and Superantojo (operated by PedidosYa) from European-focused Delivery Hero.
