Gorillas, Flink, and Why Quick Commerce Was Actually Born in Berlin

Two Companies, One City: How Berlin Actually Invented German Quick Commerce

Grocery delivery in Germany splits into the same two business models everywhere you go: a full-assortment service built around a planned weekly shop, and quick commerce built for small, urgent top-ups delivered within minutes rather than a chosen window. That basic split holds in Berlin too. What’s different is where the quick-commerce half of it actually came from.

Munich and Hamburg both got a version of this story secondhand: Flink showing up as the delivery app that survived after everyone else left. Berlin’s version is different, because Berlin isn’t just where quick commerce happened to arrive, it’s where it started. Both Gorillas and Flink, the two companies that defined and then fought over Germany’s ultrafast grocery-delivery category, were founded in Berlin within months of each other in 2020.

Gorillas: Berlin’s Fastest Rise, and a Complete Exit

Gorillas is the company that put Berlin’s quick-commerce scene on the map, and it did it almost absurdly fast. Founded in May 2020 by Kağan Sümer, who had previously run an online supermarket called Getgoodys, Gorillas launched its first Berlin deliveries the following month from a dark store on Rheinsberger Straße. By mid-2021, it had crossed the 1 billion dollar valuation mark, making it one of Europe’s fastest companies ever to reach unicorn status.

That speed came from burning cash at a rate that eventually caught up with it, reportedly 60 to 90 million euros a month at points. In December 2022, Turkish quick-commerce rival Getir bought Gorillas outright for a reported 1.2 billion euros paid in stock. The two brands were never actually merged into one efficient operation, a failure that reportedly frustrated Getir’s own Abu Dhabi-based majority shareholder, Mubadala. In April 2024, Getir confirmed a full withdrawal from Germany, with the shutdown itself taking effect on 15 May 2024. Gorillas, the company Berlin actually built from scratch, no longer exists anywhere in the city, or the country.

Flink: Still Headquartered Where It Started, Still the Last One Standing

Flink is the other half of Berlin’s 2020 quick-commerce story, and unlike Gorillas, it’s still here. Founded at the end of 2020 by Christoph Cordes, Oliver Merkel, Julian Dames, and Nikolas Bullwinkel, Flink’s headquarters has stayed put on Brunnenstrasse in Mitte through everything since, including a roughly 750 million dollar raise in December 2021 that valued the company near 3 billion dollars, a much harder May 2023 round that cut that valuation to about 1 billion euros, and a further 100 million euros in April 2024.

The company’s fortunes kept swinging into 2026. Flink secured shareholder approval for a convertible loan of up to 87.5 million euros in December 2025, described by Supermarktblog as a bridge instrument to buy time rather than a sign of strength. Weeks later, in February 2026, Flink returned to Wolt’s own delivery platform after a spell of exclusivity elsewhere, appearing as a storefront in Berlin-Mitte and Tempelhof-Schöneberg with a 2.49 euro delivery fee, waived for Wolt+ members above a 27 euro order. Then, in March 2026, Flink confirmed a fresh 100 million dollar investment led by existing backer Prosus, with BAT’s corporate venture arm Btomorrow Ventures joining as the new name in the investor group, a round that valued Flink around 900 million dollars, alongside a claim of having reached EBITDA profitability across roughly 160 hubs in Germany and the Netherlands, together reaching 22.5 million people with an assortment of around 3,000 products per hub. DoorDash, along with Northzone, Bond, Mubadala Capital, and REWE, remains part of Flink’s broader existing investor base, but wasn’t named as a participant in this specific March 2026 round.

Photo by SHVETS production on Pexels

In Berlin specifically, Flink has been pushing toward full coverage since well before that 2026 news. A July 2024 Tagesspiegel report on a fresh round of expansion, adding 200 local jobs and new delivery bikes, described the company as “nähert sich einer nahezu flächendeckenden Versorgung”, approaching near-citywide coverage, an opportunity that opened up directly because its Berlin-born rival had just left the market. As of the most recent Berlin pricing data, Flink delivers roughly 2,400 products in an average of 10 minutes, for a delivery fee of 1.80 to 2.99 euros, waived above a 50 euro order, with a technical minimum order as low as 1 euro.

Scheduled Delivery: REWE, Knuspr, and Picnic All Fight for Berlin’s Weekly Shop

Quick commerce is only half of Berlin’s grocery delivery picture. For an actual planned weekly shop, Berlin residents have a genuinely wider choice than either Munich or Hamburg, because unlike Hamburg, Knuspr operates here, and unlike Munich, it’s now the biggest single market the brand has in the country.

REWE Lieferservice remains the most consistent default, delivering from whichever branch covers your postal code with a minimum order around 50 euros (ranging 40 to 60 depending on area), a delivery fee up to 4.90 euros that disappears above 120 euros, and next-day 1-to-2-hour delivery windows, per lieferservices.eu’s 2026 Berlin tracker. One practical detail worth knowing: REWE’s drivers also typically collect empty Pfand deposit bottles on your next delivery, useful for a household that would otherwise be saving up crates for a separate trip.

Knuspr, the full-assortment service that absorbed the former Bringmeister brand, only launched in Berlin in April 2024, roughly a year after establishing itself in Munich. It caught up fast: according to Presseportal’s November 2025 coverage, greater Berlin now handles over 125,000 orders a month, a roughly 90 percent year-on-year jump, making it Knuspr’s largest German location, ahead of Munich, which has been profitable since November 2023. Berlin’s growth is powered by a heavily automated, robotics-assisted 12,000 square meter fulfillment center in Schönefeld, with the company targeting operational profitability there by the end of 2025. Knuspr’s minimum order is 39 euros, with delivery free above 79 euros (69.99 euros for orders placed through Wolt+), and a same-day delivery promise of roughly 3 hours.

Picnic takes a third approach entirely: a fixed daily van route rather than a menu of delivery slots. It launched in Berlin on Monday, 19 June 2023, initially across 15 districts according to Lebensmittelzeitung’s coverage of the launch, and has since expanded further east with an additional hub in Hoppegarten. Per Picnic’s own Berlin page, delivery is always free above a 45 euro minimum, and your delivery window narrows to a precise 20 minutes only once the actual delivery day arrives, rather than letting you pick an hour in advance.

What a Basket Actually Costs in Berlin Right Now

Independent price comparisons don’t always agree, and it’s worth being upfront about that rather than picking whichever number tells the tidier story. A basket comparison published by lieferservices.eu in early 2026, pricing an identical small shopping list, milk, bread, pasta, bananas, coffee, eggs, butter, and water, across all three services and adding each one’s delivery fee, found Flink cheapest overall at roughly 24.42 euros, ahead of REWE at about 28.92 euros and Knuspr at about 29.42 euros. The gap came largely from delivery fees rather than per-item pricing: Flink’s fee can run as low as 1.80 euros on a qualifying order, undercutting REWE’s flat rate on a small basket.

That’s a genuinely different conclusion from broader independent studies covering other German cities, which have generally found a real price premium on quick commerce once a larger, more representative basket strips the delivery fee out of the picture. Both things can be true at once: for a small, occasional order, Flink’s lower delivery fee can make it the cheaper overall choice, while a real weekly shop still tends to favor REWE, Knuspr, or Picnic on a per-item basis. REWE also carries by far the widest range, an estimated 20,000 products, against Flink’s roughly 2,400, which matters if your household is trying to fill a broad weekly list rather than grab a couple of forgotten ingredients.

What’s Actually Gone: Amazon Fresh, Gorillas, and Getir

Three names still circulate in older grocery-delivery advice for Berlin that no longer apply. Amazon Fresh shut down across all of Germany, Berlin included, on 14 December 2024, according to Supermarktblog’s coverage of the closure, after roughly seven years running the service in Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich. Gorillas, Berlin’s own quick-commerce pioneer, stopped operating the moment its owner Getir withdrew from Germany on 15 May 2024. And Getir itself, the Turkish company that bought Gorillas, is gone from the entire German market, not just from Berlin. If you’re checking a source written before mid-2024, treat any mention of these three as outdated by default.

The practical framing underneath all of this hasn’t changed just because the roster of players has: a full-assortment service is still the right tool for a real week’s worth of groceries, and quick commerce is still best treated as a stand-in for one forgotten item, not a substitute for the whole shop. What’s different in Berlin is simply how many genuinely competing options now sit on each side of that line, and how directly the quick-commerce side of it traces back to two companies this city itself built.

Step by Step

1. For a planned weekly shop, compare REWE, Knuspr, and Picnic on your own schedule, not just price. REWE and Knuspr let you choose a delivery window; Picnic trades that flexibility for a lower, always-free-above-minimum model.
2. Don't assume Knuspr isn't available just because it's newer to Berlin than Munich. It only launched here in April 2024, but it's already the brand's largest German market by order volume.
3. Reserve Flink for genuine, urgent top-ups, not your main shop. Its founding roots are Berlin's own, and its coverage is now close to citywide, but its assortment (about 2,400 products) is a fraction of REWE's.
4. If price is the deciding factor, check your actual basket size before assuming which service wins. Small orders can favor Flink once its lower delivery fee is counted; larger weekly orders tend to favor the full-assortment services.
5. Don't go looking for Gorillas, Getir, or Amazon Fresh. All three are gone from Berlin, and the entire German market, as of mid-to-late 2024.
6. If you're moving from Munich or Hamburg, expect a different lineup than you're used to. Berlin has Knuspr (unlike Hamburg) and a more mature Picnic footprint, alongside the same REWE and Flink options both other cities share.

Compliance Note

This page compares the general history, business models, coverage, and typical pricing of grocery delivery services available in Berlin, current as of mid-2026. It is not an endorsement of any specific provider. Corporate ownership, funding, delivery areas, fees, and market participants in this sector change quickly, quick commerce especially has seen major players exit the German market entirely within the past few years, so confirm current details and coverage for your exact address directly with each service before ordering.