UPDATED 14:06 EDT / MAY 17 2019

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Amazon leads $575M round into UK food delivery startup Deliveroo

Three months after backing a half-billion-dollar round into autonomous driving firm Aurora Innovation Inc., Amazon.com Inc. has made another major startup investment.

British food delivery unicorn Deliveroo Ltd. today announced that it has raised $575 million from a consortium led by the online retail giant. The other participants included Fidelity Management and Research, Greenoaks Capital Partners and  T. Rowe Price Group, which also joined Amazon in the Aurora Innovation investment.

For Amazon, the round represents a return of sorts to a market where it has struggled to compete on its own. The company stopped operating its Amazon Restaurants food delivery service in the U.K. late last year following fierce competition from Uber Technologies Inc. and other rivals. Through the newly acquired in stake in Deliveroo, Amazon gains an indirect but significant market presence.

Deliveroo has a network of 60,000 couriers who deliver food to consumers’ homes from more than 80,000 restaurants. The startup maintains a presence not only in the U.K. but also in 13 other countries, with its operations spanning a total of 500 markets worldwide.

Deliveroo will use the investment to further expand its operations. The startup intends to hire more employees, with an emphasis on growing its engineering group in the U.K, and will bring its delivery platform to additional regions. Deliveroo also has plans to invest more in new projects such as its Editions program, an initiative to set up efficient, delivery-only kitchens at strategic locations to reach more customers.

Amazon, in turn, may build on its investment in the startup to boost its own European operations. The company could include Deliveroo in its Amazon Prime membership program and encourage users to order through the platform by offering discounts.

With the Amazon-backed round, the British startup has raised more than $1.5 billion to date. Deliveroo was worth more than $2 billion after its previous funding round in 2017, which suggests that the startup’s current valuation is significantly higher.

Photo: Deliveroo

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