Picnic raises €250 million for robotized distribution center

Online supermarket Picnic has raised 250 million euros in a new investment round. The Dutch company wants to use this money to build a robotized distribution center of 42,000 square meters.

Investors are the existing shareholders, while the Dutch bank ABN Amro has provided Picnic with a new loan. The millions of euros will be used to develop a logistics center that’s equipped with over a hundred fully automated sorting, packing and distribution machines.

‘The basis of our growth strategy’

“We use this funding to develop the most sustainable infrastructure for home delivery and to hire the best people from the tech industry”, co-founder Frederik Nieuwenhuys explains. “Together with our electric cars, the robotic distribution center in Utrecht forms the basis of our growth strategy and also provides a thousand jobs.”

150,000 households can be served from the dc

The new distribution center will have room for 200,000 crates, which will be used to store the fast-moving consumer goods. In total, 150,000 households in the Netherlands can be served every week from this dc.

300,000 new customers this year

Thus far, Picnic has received about 300,000 new customers in the Netherlands and Germany this year.