As the UK languishes in dark winter evenings, the complete lack of twilight and seemingly constant sleet and rain, the only person that seems not to be as miserable as the weather is Danish entrepreneur, Klaus Nyegaard. He is the top man for the online takeaway ordering business Just-Eat. For Klaus, if it pours with rain, the orders come flooding in as the customers don’t fancy a soaking outside.
The Just-Eat website allows users to browse and order from the menus of thousands of takeaway delivery outlets including pizza and Indian food, and has grown steadily since its original launch in 2001. The company founders moved their attentions to the ‘takeaway hungry’ UK having begun the company in Denmark. The British obsession for door-step takeaway food delivery makes us the biggest market outside of the USA for this service. So begining an enterprise in this county seemed the most sensible decision. It may seem that visits to restaurants are being scaled back, but the takeaway market appears to be recession-resistent so Just-Eat’s growth looks set to continue.
More than 50% of the six thousand takeaways listed on Just-Eat are UK based, with over 1 million orders passing through their ordering platform per month. The figures were certainly impressive enough to encourage venture capitalists Index Ventures to close a £10.Five million pound funding deal with Just-Eat, giving them the opportunity to enhance their position in the UK, giving them the chance of dominating European markets. Every year sees over one thousand new takeaways opening each year, and gives Just-Eat the confidence of taking a large share of the market.
Just-Eat is an atttractive proposition financially for any investor, as it uses a simple scalable business model. Payments are received via the online payment procedure, which, as part of the company’s revenue model, will allow for easy growth. The money that is received up front, is then distributed bi-monthly to the restaurants featured, less commission of ten per cent. Cash flow is not a problem as the structure ensures that the company has plenty of money in the account at any given point in time.
