Doordash quietly funded the operations of 15-minute supply app Fridge No Extra for greater than a month whereas it thought of shopping for a part of the corporate — then pulled out on the final second, The Put up has discovered.
Earlier than Fridge No Extra abruptly introduced it was shutting down and laid off its 600 workers in New York and Boston on Thursday, the corporate had been financed virtually completely by cash from Doordash since late January, in keeping with sources and messages obtained by The Put up.
Doordash swept in after Fridge No Extra had struggled to boost cash and amid heated competitors from different fast supply apps together with Gorillas, Gopuff, Getir, Jokr and Buyk, in keeping with messages that Fridge No Extra co-founder and CEO Pavel Danilov despatched to workers on Thursday.
Doordash’s infusion of money allowed Fridge No Extra to maintain working whereas Doordash carried out due diligence forward of the potential acquisition of components of the corporate. Some Fridge No Extra workers even interviewed for jobs at Doordash.
“We have now had quite a few conferences and calls with them, a few of you had interviews,” Danilov wrote in Thursday’s message to workers. “Every thing appeared to be going properly and shifting ahead till Tuesday morning.”
Then on Wednesday, Doordash “unexpectedly cancelled the deal and stopped financing,” in keeping with Danilov.
“I used to be not supplied an in depth motive as to why,” he mentioned.
Danilov didn’t point out Doordash by identify within the messages, referring as a substitute to an unnamed “promising strategic associate,” however The Put up independently confirmed that Doordash was the corporate concerned.
A supply near Doordash informed The Put up that “the talks ended attributable to a number of elements that arose throughout due diligence together with operational points that might have been expensive and have taken months to remediate. These points had been communicated to the Fridge No Extra workforce.”
However a supply near Fridge No Extra’s management claimed that Doordash’s sudden withdrawal was due Danilov and co-founder Anton Gladkoborodov being from Russia — despite the fact that the supply acquainted mentioned the founders didn’t help Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“I believe they didn’t need the PR of buying an organization with Russian founders proper now,” the supply mentioned. “What is de facto unhappy to me is that they decide the blokes not by who they had been or what they stood for however by their nation of birthplace.”
Doordash declined to touch upon the file and Fridge No Extra didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The Put up was the primary to report on Thursday morning that Fridge No Extra was shutting down.
One other Russia-backed fast supply app, Buyk, furloughed 98% of its workers on Friday after US sanctions and restrictions on cash leaving Russia snarled its funding.
Buyk CEO James Walker informed furloughed workers on Thursday afternoon that Buyk had discovered a mortgage towards its property that might permit it to pay workers for the work they carried out earlier than the corporate shut down. Nonetheless, the corporate was not capable of safe US financing so workers would all be terminated as of Friday, Walker mentioned.
