UK-based online restaurant food delivery business Deliveroo will announce aggressive expansion plans including a completed $140 million capital raising to help fund a launch in Australia.
The company, founded by William Shu and Greg Orlowski??? in 2013, will be headed up locally by former YumTable general manager Levi Aron. It has already hired 40 staff in Melbourne and Sydney and employed an additional 30 to 40 bike riders to deliver meals in each city. 
Deliveroo, which focuses on delivering meals from more exclusive restaurants that haven't  offered such a service, has a raft of big-name backers and is also entering Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai.
The $140 million fourth investment round was led by DST Global and Greenoaks Capital, with participation from current investors Accel Partners, Hummingbird Ventures and Index Ventures, will be used to scale Deliveroo in the new markets and support further expansion. 
Mr Aron said in the past few weeks the business had secured local restaurants such as Huxtaburger, 38 Chairs and Uncle in Melbourne and Spice Room, Red Lantern and Gelatissimo in Sydney for deliveries.
"Deliveroo is an end-to-end delivery service. We control the whole experience from the time you place an order to when it arrives. On EatNow and Menulog the restaurants have their own drivers," he said.
"There's over 120 restaurants that we've brought in from Melbourne and Sydney, which we've achieved in the past five weeks. We target high-end restaurants that predominantly don't deliver." 

Active sector
The capital raising follows a raft of major deals in the sector, including the sale of Menulog to British competitor Just Eat for $855 million, a pricetag that shocked the industry.
Turkish equivalent Yemeksepeti was also sold for $US589 million to Delivery Hero in   May, which prompted the company's chief executive Nevzat Aydin to share the profits with his 114 employees, giving them a share of $36.8 million.
German business HelloFresh, which delivers ready to cook meals, also planned to list this year but earlier this month it was rumoured to have postponed its initial public offering.
Mr Aron said it was important for food-tech businesses to strike the right balance between being too aggressive and too conservative.
"We've managed to raise an additional $140 million, but it has to be spent wisely," he said.
"We won't be hiring 200 to 300 people in Australia, we're hiring sustainably."

Expansion plans
Deliveroo will initially service the Melbourne suburbs of St Kilda, Prahran, South Yarra, Toorak and Richmond and Sydney's CBD, Haymarket, Potts Point, Kings Cross, Woolloomooloo, Darlinghurst, Elizabeth Bay, Rushcutters Bay and Surry Hills.
New suburbs will be added in coming weeks and the business intends to be in Adelaide, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Perth by early 2016.
Mr Aron was tight-lipped about customer and order numbers, but said it had achieved an 80 per cent returning customer rate and that the number of customers were increasing tenfold.
Since launching in London in 2013, the business has already expanded to countries such as Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.
To date, Deliveroo has raised $280 million in venture capital. Its backers have also invested in companies like Slack, ASOS, Invoice2go and Flipkart.