Polish Enterprise Fund VIII, a private equity fund managed by Enterprise Investors, will invest in Goodspeed, Poland’s largest provider of highly specialized temperature-controlled logistics services for ready-to-eat meal producers.
- PEF VIII will acquire a 49.8% share in the company;
- Goodspeed’s founders, Sylwester Rypina and Paweł Rypina, will retain a majority stake and will work with EI on the company’s further dynamic development;
- The value of the investment has not been disclosed;
- The transaction requires antimonopoly approval.
Goodspeed was established in 2009, initially providing delivery services for a single meal box producer in one district of Warsaw. Today, it is the unchallenged leader in providing highly specialized cold chain logistics services for Poland’s ready-to-eat meal producers. The company serves more than 4,600 cities and towns across the entire country. It maintains the highest standard of service and an exceptionally effective delivery chain thanks to unrivaled know-how and logistics processes (with a proprietary IT platform) that are tailored to this market.
Size and nationwide reach allow Goodspeed to reap the benefits of scale. This, and the fact that a company wanting to deliver ready-to-eat meals must have a dedicated logistics chain, gives Goodspeed’s business model several competitive advantages and makes it to hard replicate. The financial results confirm the company’s market leadership: 2022 revenues reached PLN 80 million, while this year’s target is PLN 125 million.
“Goodspeed does what is hardest in logistics – last-mile temperature control,” said EI partner Michał Kędzia, who is responsible for this investment. “The company’s unique know-how enabling door-to-door delivery, and the growing role of direct sales in the food industry, create potential for expansion into new product categories. Since Goodspeed operates an extensive last-mile delivery network under temperature-controlled conditions, it can add a broad range of other services to its offer for end customers,” he added.
Sylwester Rypina, Goodspeed’s founder and CEO, summed up the development potential as follows: “Working with our new business partner, we plan to move the company’s dynamic development up another gear. We see we can expand our competencies by adding new solutions for our customers. Moreover, since we work with many ready-to-eat meal producers and serve a considerable part of this market, we believe we can use our lead position to offer those customers additional specialist services. For years we have been honing the very demanding logistics process for the catering industry. We allocate tens of thousands of meals every evening to production companies all over Poland and deliver them to consumers’ front doors within a few hours, maintaining full control over the cold chain logistics. We plan to develop these unique competencies in foreign markets with the support of our new partner. We also want to enter new industries and offer our existing customers other exciting and innovative solutions.”