Tech unicorn Deliveroo is planning to create hundreds of new jobs
UK tech unicorn Deliveroo is planning to create hundreds of new jobs in London as it grows its business globally.
The food delivery company will create more than 300 new positions, many of which it said will be in highly-skilled senior technical roles in areas such as software and hardware engineering, behavioural economics and algorithm development.
The additions will more than double its current technology team of 125, which is led by executives from top tech companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Netflix.
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“Deliveroo is going from strength to strength and growing every single day. London is where I founded this company and it’s from our headquarters here that we export our British-born technology around the world," said founder and chief executive Will Shu.
"When so many of the success stories in the on-demand economy have been grown from America, I am particularly proud to be doing this here in Britain.”
The expansion signals the three-year-old startup is undeterred by increasing competition from better-funded rivals entering the space such as UberEats and Amazon Restaurant, as well as a legal tussle with drivers over workers rights.
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Deliveroo was first player in the market to deliver high-end food from established restaurants in the UK and is now in 130 cities in 12 countries around the world. It is the most highly funded startup in the UK, having raised more than £380m from investors.
It has also revealed that orders grew by more than 650 per cent last year and it now employs more than 1,000 people and works with 20,000 restaurants.
The new positions will be based at its new offices in the heart of the Square Mile, where it is taking over more than 50,000 sq ft of office space at the former home of the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (Liffe), including what used to be its trading floor, near Cannon Street.