A few words from Miki

It’s difficult to believe it’s already been 10 years since we founded Wolt with Elias, Juhani, Lauri, Mika and Oskari in Helsinki back in 2014. I’m not sure where I imagined we’d be by now, but I do know our focus from the start was to build a world-class service for everyone – for customers, merchants and couriers alike, which is not an easy balance to get right.

I’m proud to say we’re off to a good start. We’ve helped local businesses reach new customers and given them tools to help them grow in an online world, empowered people to be their own boss and earn on their own terms and added a touch of joy and simplicity to customers’ daily lives - though there’s still lots more to do.

The past ten years have flown by quickly and it’s been an honor building our company together with our talented and ambitious team. We’ve grown our business from one to 28 countries, from six to over 12,000 employees, and expanded from the delivery of food to the delivery of (almost) everything – groceries, TVs, prescription drugs, pet food, flowers and much more. Not to mention, joining forces with DoorDash which has allowed us to continue dreaming big.

What’s more, the most exciting part is the shared impact we’ve had along the way, creating jobs and new opportunities across thousands of local communities. The Wolt community has supported an estimated EUR 19 billion in economic activity across our markets.*

We started out as a group of six co-founders in Helsinki in 2014, with our first goal to help people order and get food from restaurants through a quick and effortless app experience. A small anecdote, Wolt was an unnamed initiative with many changing project names for our first 12 months or so, as we struggled to find a name that just felt right. “Wolt” was inspired by a list of 10,000 auto generated band names that Mika found online. It had a name called “Volt United.” We took the first part and swapped the “V” for a “W.”

By 2014 it was clear to us that virtually everything we were used to consuming offline would eventually move online. We believed that the digital shift in local commerce would start with restaurants since eating is universal and all of us do it multiple times per day. In hindsight, this is one of the key things that we got right.

We wanted to be part of this local commerce transition from an offline to an online world, and that was the

initial idea behind Wolt. Back in 2014, we launched with offering self-pickup ordering because it seemed like the easiest way to get up and running. We quickly realized that while there was demand for people to order their meal and pick it up without standing in line, there was a lot more interest in having your meal delivered to your home or office. That was what one could call our magical product-market fit, and I guess the rest is history.

The good side about being founded in Finland, a country with a small population, long distances and a non-existent delivery culture is that from the very start we also needed to think about fast and efficient international expansion. We’ve learned how to expand to new countries, and increasingly into new categories. In 2016, we took Wolt to our neighboring country of Sweden. Soon after, Estonia followed – then Denmark, Latvia and Lithuania. And ten years down the line we’re in 28 countries and counting.

Together with DoorDash we’re in over 30 countries, 28 operating under the Wolt brand. I’m truly proud that Wolt has grown into a Finnish and European success story, now reaching far beyond our continent and thriving as a global company across multiple geographies.

From restaurants to the delivery of (almost) everything

As we began our journey in 2014, the tech and online explosion was also transforming commerce and reshaping how we all interact with the high street.

E-commerce became more popular because of convenience and often greater variety. Covid-19, inflation and rising rents also hit small businesses hard, leading to closures and impacting local jobs, taxes and the vibrancy of city centers.

Over the past decade, platforms like Wolt have revolutionized the traditional concept of e-commerce. We’re connecting people to the best of their local businesses and communities, an approach that’s highly different from e-commerce giants.

In turn we’re proud to be helping revitalize neighborhoods, empower small & medium sized businesses (which make up the majority of our merchant partners) and create work opportunities for hundreds of thousands of couriers.

Wolt has transformed into a true local commerce platform. We’ve expanded beyond restaurants into grocery, pharmacy, pet food, flowers, beauty products and much more.

We’ve launched, among other things, Wolt Market, our own delivery-only grocery stores, our Ads business which enables merchant partners to amplify their reach, our membership program, Wolt+, and Wolt Capital, which gives merchant partners access to fast and simple additional financing.

None of this would be possible without our incredible product and engineering team, which is now 1000 people strong in our various global tech hubs and our amazing team around the world. We’re working on a range of technologies, support tools, products and so much more to help ensure our partners succeed and our customers have the highest quality experience.

Our journey and my thoughts could fill many more pages. This is only a snapshot and most importantly a thank you. These past ten years have been one hell of a ride and I couldn’t be more proud of the impact we’ve had together. We’re ultimately only ever successful if our partners succeed, and working with hundreds of thousands of merchants and couriers across the globe, it's sure been a wild ride trying to navigate the world’s ups and downs together.

It’s still the start in so many ways both for Wolt, as well as our industry. I truly believe the opportunities across convenience, grocery, and other retail categories are vast and for the most part, only in their very beginning. I think one day many years from now people will smile remembering that companies like ours started with restaurant delivery. But we’re not there yet, we’re still learning and working hard every day to improve. It’s still in many ways Day 1 for what we want to achieve.

As we look to the next 10 years and beyond, we want to continue to bring more joy, simplicity and earnings to the neighborhoods of the world. Thank you especially to our team of wonderful people across Wolt and DoorDash, our partners and customers. You are the reason we can continue to work.

Thank you for being a part of our journey so far, and we’re grateful for every order, every merchant and every delivery made on our platform.

Miki, Co-Founder & CEO, Wolt

*Source: Copenhagen Economics input-output model analysis based on Wolt data. Includes aggregated data over the indicated approximately ten year period. Economic activity illustrates an aggregated estimated amount that includes courier earnings and merchant sales and how these earnings directly and indirectly flow through the economy.