Milkrun CEO Dany Milham,who previously co-founded the Koala furniture brand,said the April document was not the most current version of the company’s pitch to investors and said losses had improved to about $10 per order since then,having fallen from an initial $40,and would soon turn positive.
He said Milkrun is “the fastest ever growing company in Australia’s history from a revenue point of view which is quite good to see,” adding it had grown about eight times since its last raise. “Business could be in a better shape to be honest”,he said,because of the broader economic environment but Milkrun in a “comfortable position” financially.
Milkrun,which operates in inner Sydney and Melbourne,announced that it raised $75 million from investors in January. Milham refused to give details on how much money Milkrun has left,how much it plans to raise,its valuation or how long it will last if it cannot raise funds.
The climate for start-up fundraising has deteriorated since Milkrun last raised external funding. Publicly listed tech stocks have declined sharply amid concerns about inflation and higher interest rates,and venture capital firms have told their portfolio companies to reduce cash burn rates to preserve capital,triggering job cuts across the sector.
Milkrun’s competitors in Australia and overseas have slashed jobs,scaled back their services orgone under. The company is also facing a fresh onslaught of competition from grocery chains. TheHerald and The Age last week revealed that retail giant Woolworthsis launching a 60-minute delivery service called Metro60 in Sydney’s eastern suburbs before a wider rollout.
Milham said he was not fazed by Metro60 because he was used to competing with Woolworths’ existing partnership with Uber. He said Uber did not provide a reliable supply of drivers,because it uses contractors who lack a minimum wage in contrast to Milkrun’s workforce of traditional employees,and used cars that would cause congestion around supermarkets.
“It just fundamentally won’t work at Metro[Woolworths outlets],” Milham said. “There’s no way you can get 100 cars in a 30-minute period to a Metro store.”