이 기사는 2022년 03월 14일 06:41 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

Kurly Inc, an operator of the online grocery platform Market Kurly, is seeking to diversify its business portfolio as its planned initial public offering (IPO) has been delayed.

Kurly raised 250 billion won ($203 million) from a foreign investor in a pre-IPO funding at the end of last year, which valued the company at nearly 4 trillion won. Before that, the firm raised 225.4 billion won in a Series F funding round in July 2021.

Market insiders widely expected that Kurly will speed up its IPO process for further growth, but the company decided not to file for a preliminary review for its IPO in January.

Instead, Kurly chose to diversify its business. The company added a bunch of new business purposes in its business registration after the shareholders’ meeting earlier this year. The company removed most of its previous business purposes except for the ones that are related to agricultural products. It instead detailed the previous businesses and added new business fields.

The addition of new businesses like school meal services and catering, restaurant, restaurant chain and franchise is worth noting. Kurly added cosmetics, alcoholic beverages, and health functional foods as its new business purpose in an apparent bid to sell those products, but the firm hasn’t dipped a toe into the catering and restaurant businesses yet.

Kurly, the first one to start overnight delivery in Korea in 2015, has stepped up efforts to boost revenue through its online platform and expansion of its logistics system. It saw its revenue increase 17% year-on-year to 428.9 billion won in 2019.

It then shifted its focus to non-food items, including cosmetics, kitchenware, pet foods, home appliances, mobile phones and hotel accommodation vouchers, as well as flight tickets and rental car reservation services to become a comprehensive online platform.

It is understood that the company aims to pursue a business strategy to grow in size by increasing the number of items sold in its fresh food logistics and delivery system.

The company seems to plan to expand its footprint in an offline market through the catering and restaurant services to make synergies with fresh food products and better promote its IPO amid fierce competition the e-commerce industry.

Industry insiders said that even if Kurly offers a wider variety of items, its growth will be limited compared to its larger rivals as it lacks in capital.

“We added sectors that are considered to have some potential to our business purposes,” an official at Kurly said. “No specific business plan has been made for the catering and restaurant business yet.” (Reporting by Seon-ho Kim)