Deliveroo CEO Sees Echoes of Scooter Fad in Ultrafast Delivery

Every few weeks, Will Shu takes a night off as CEO of Amazon-backed Deliveroo to bike through London, delivering restaurant meals or groceries in the place of one of the newly public company’s 110,000 gig workers. Things changed this year, as Shu noticed Deliveroo couriers were jostling with many more rivals: venture-backed startups promising delivery of 20 minutes or less.

The rise of ultrafast delivery startups, such as London’s Zapp and Berlin’s Gorillas, represent a new challenge for eight-year-old Deliveroo, which is already battling with Uber Eats and Just Eat for a share of restaurant-meal deliveries. The newer delivery startups tout steep introductory discounts on food, snacks and booze transported from nearby urban warehouses. And they are threatening a recent source of growth for Deliveroo—groceries.

Now Shu is trying to speed up the clock, testing the rapid-delivery model by partnering with U.K. grocery chain Morrisons. He said Deliveroo is averaging 22 minutes from store to door and working on cutting that time. “Do you care so much that it’s 12 or 22 [minutes]? Maybe you do. We are trying to figure that out,” he said in an interview at Deliveroo’s London headquarters.