Herbert Smith Freehills' Private Equity and Venture Capital team has advised on the sale of FoodStorm, a SaaS order management system (OMS) that powers end-to-end order-ahead and catering experiences for grocery retailers, to Instacart, the leading online grocery platform in North America.
The Herbert Smith Freehills team was led by Co-Head of Venture Capital (Australia) Elizabeth Henderson and solicitor Katherine Duong, supported by partner and Head of Venture Capital Peter Dunne, as well as a team of lawyers across the Sydney and Melbourne offices who worked with associated tax practice Greenwoods & Herbert Smith Freehills, led by partner Toby Eggleston.
Elizabeth Henderson said, "We have been delighted to work with FoodStorm's founders, Anthony and Miranda Super, and its CEO, Robert Hill, on their sale to Instacart. This transaction is the realisation and recognition of their achievements in building a great Australian business, and a testament to the power of FoodStorm's online prepared foods and catering platform which has clearly been recognised as one of the best on a global stage. Working with such a great group of people at FoodStorm reminds us why we love working with founders. Congratulations to the FoodStorm team on this accomplishment."
FoodStorm CEO Robert Hill said, "We couldn't have asked for better partners than the Herbert Smith Freehills team to support us through this process. Elizabeth, Katherine, Catie, Peter, Toby and the extended HSF team were diligent, thoughtful and with us every step of the way in delivering this fantastic result. We're now looking forward to everything we'll achieve as part of the Instacart family."
This deal is another example of Herbert Smith Freehills' market-leading work in Australian venture capital raisings and founder liquidity transactions. Other recent examples include:
- Who Gives a Crap on its A$41.5 million Series A capital raise;
- Atlassian's acquisitions of Code Barrel and ThinkTilt from the companies' founders;
- Adairs Limited's NZ$80 million acquisition of Mocka Group from its founders;
- the A$125 million merger of thedockyard and Ansarada and re-listing of the merged entity on the ASX;
- Culture Amp on its A$135 million Series F capital raise and secondary sale; and
- SafetyCulture on its A$99 million Series C2 capital raise and secondary sale.
