Until recently, the idea of ordering a carton of oat milk on your phone and having it delivered to your home within 10 minutes was unimaginable. The notion of a company making a profit doing so was even more outlandish. But some of the world’s biggest tech investors, including SoftBank Group, Tencent and Prosus, are betting heavily on the “ultra-fast delivery” business. The stage is set for a frantic and expensive fight.
Delivering groceries is hardly new. Britain’s Ocado has been refining its robot-enabled warehouses for over a decade. Online orders accounted for almost a fifth of UK supermarket J Sainsbury’s grocery sales in the three months to Jan. 2. But the newcomers offer something different from weekly or next-day deliveries. They aim to drop off smaller orders within 20 or even 10 minutes.
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