Scottish Mortgage is Baillie Gifford's flagship investment trust (founded 1909, LSE ticker SMT), known for its maximalist growth style — long-term stakes in Tesla, Amazon and ASML plus bold allocations to private companies like SpaceX and ByteDance. It is the UK retail investor's flagship vehicle for global disruptive growth.
This piece explains how Gopuff, a delivery company, works differently from apps like Uber Eats: it owns its own warehouses and stock, aiming to bring everyday items to your door in as little as 15 minutes. For ordinary people, it shows how shopping might shift from waiting days to getting things instantly, potentially replacing convenience stores. For investors, it highlights a new retail model gaining traction. Worth reading because it breaks down why speed matters, how the business makes money, and what risks remain.
This article introduces Gopuff, a portfolio company of Scottish Mortgage. Gopuff is a leading instant commerce platform that, through its own warehouses and logistics, offers 5,000 products at supermarket prices with delivery in as fast as 15 minutes, operating 24/7. Co-founder Yakir Gola noted that
Guest: Yakir Gola, co-founder and co-CEO of Gopuff, the instant commerce platform. He founded the company with Rafael Ilishayev in Philadelphia in 2012, building out its own warehousing and delivery network from scratch, and the company now covers the US and UK. He is in conversation with Scottish Mortgage investment manager Tom Slater, and the latter half features portfolio manager Claire Shaw and Slater reviewing the investment thesis.
Main thread of this episode: How Gopuff used 12 years to validate the value of "immediacy" in retail — evolving from late-night convenience to an all-hours daily essentials platform — and how its owned-warehouse model achieves working unit economics.
The most consequential judgment in the entire episode: Yakir Gola argues that "two-day delivery was the fastest way to deliver in the past, but consumer demand for speed will only keep accelerating; the future form is Gopuff showing up directly at your door, knowing when you want something and in what form you want it" — his basis being that US online grocery penetration is only 13%, with 87% still happening offline, meaning the market is still early-stage.
Yakir Gola argues that instant delivery is not a niche need but a continuation of the e-commerce trend — once two-day delivery becomes the standard, the next step is inevitably "faster." He recalled the judgment he made when founding the company in 2012: at that time, two-day delivery was still the fastest fulfillment method, and he and his co-founder were convinced that consumers would keep pursuing shorter delivery times. Gopuff has spent 12 years proving that judgment and currently offers 5,000 products, delivery in as fast as 15 minutes, and 24/7 operations.
Gola's supporting market data: U.S. online grocery penetration is currently only 13%, with 87% still happening in physical stores; the U.K. is slightly higher. This means the penetration headroom for instant commerce is far from tapped. Tom Slater adds another piece of evidence of market change: after Gopuff got its start in Philadelphia, the number of local 7-Eleven stores fell by more than one-third (over 20 stores) — the offline convenience format has been materially displaced in a local market.
Extrapolation: Gola believes future fulfillment speed should be "significantly faster than 20–30 minutes, and cheaper," with the direction pointing to predictive demand — having goods ready before you place your order. The validation signal is the pace of fresh-grocery category expansion (see Section 3); the falsification signal would be the offline retail price advantage widening again and consumers' willingness to pay for speed declining.
Gola argues that Gopuff is fundamentally different from third-party aggregation models such as Instacart, Uber Eats, and DoorDash — only by owning inventory and warehouses can a company simultaneously achieve "low prices" and "high accuracy." The comparative data he provides: orders on third-party platforms cost on average 30% more than Gopuff; due to a lack of inventory integration, roughly 25%–30% of orders run into issues. Gopuff's owned-warehouse model, in contrast, achieves "close to 100% order accuracy."
Historical background and mechanism: Gola comes from a family jewelry business and was involved in online sales from a young age; while at Drexel University, the pain point of running errands to 7-Eleven for classmates gave birth to the startup idea. The two started with their own money and personally made deliveries (Gola says he completed more than 5,000 deliveries in Philadelphia and Boston). In the early days they did not raise capital, relying instead on supplier payment terms and reinvested profits to expand; it was only in the third year — when the company was "profitable and growing fast" — that venture capitalists came to them unsolicited. The logic of vertical integration came from his family business experience: give customers the lowest prices and the best value, whereas any third-party route inevitably generates markups and service fees that are ultimately borne by the customer.
Tom Slater's supplementary assessment: One of Gopuff's true moats is the strict state-level alcoholic-beverage licensing regime in the U.S. — alcohol accounts for a very high share of the convenience category, and obtaining licenses is extremely difficult. Gopuff holds a large number of licenses in important markets, and this "is a huge barrier for other parties to operate this service economically." Slater also specifically notes that the competitive framework should not be limited to other delivery apps — "physical stores should be regarded as the primary competitors" — because low online penetration implies enormous headroom for substitution.
Extrapolation: Slater believes the core difficulty of the business lies in "putting the right items in the basket, extreme operational efficiency, and caring about every penny of cost." The validation signal for defensive strength: whether Gopuff can keep unit economics positive through a period of cooling capital markets. The risk is that partners (such as DoorDash and Amazon) acquire operational know-how through collaboration and then replicate the model — to which Gola responds that the company has iterated continuously for 12 years and that "this is our everything, not a side project." But this is a typical equity-holder's perspective and should be treated with some skepticism.
Gola argues that Gopuff is in the early stage of transforming from a convenience platform into a "daily essentials platform," with the transformation driven by membership subscriptions, strategic partnerships, and fresh-grocery expansion. He acknowledges that the company is still the "king of the night" — a large share of orders is concentrated from the afternoon to 2 a.m. — but daytime and morning growth is accelerating.
Supporting data:
Retrenchment and the cost: Gola admits that after raising capital in late 2021, the company faced a market correction; it withdrew from France and Spain and lowered its growth expectations. He describes the decision at the time as telling the board, "we need to get back to profitability," and cites Steve Jobs' advice to other CEOs — "kill all the crappy products, cut the businesses you're not good at" — as the retrenchment philosophy. Scottish Mortgage participated in its 2025 funding round; Slater's stated rationale was endorsing the decisions to shut down inefficient fulfillment centers, invest in fleet management, and solidify the foundations. Risk warning: Slater believes the main threats come from the macro retail environment (interest rates, cost pressures), whether the company can keep reducing costs and expanding average order value, and "the execution of thousands of small things."
Extrapolation: The growth path Gola lays out is — first deepen existing users' stickiness through membership; then acquire new users through brand partnerships (Robinhood has been mentioned, with more partners to be announced); and finally open up the daytime use case with fresh grocery. The quantitative basis for the opportunity: Gopuff currently covers only about 30% of the U.S. population, and millions of potential users are already unable to register because they are outside the delivery zones. The uncertainty: the supply chain complexity of fresh categories is far higher than that of packaged food, and Gola himself describes the company as "still early" — this transformation has not yet been fully validated.
| Target | Guest's Stance | Key Data |
|---|---|---|
| Gopuff | Bullish (from position holder's perspective) | 5,000 products, delivery in as fast as 15 minutes, covering the US and UK; FAM members contribute over 60% of orders |
| 7-Eleven | Risk warning (as the party being displaced) | Philadelphia stores fell by more than one-third (over 20 stores) after Gopuff launched |
| DoorDash | Neutral (competitor and partner) | Has a small partnership in the US; Slater categorizes it as a competitor under the third-party aggregation model |
| Instacart | Neutral (competitor, model comparison) | Third-party aggregation; orders are on average 30% more expensive than Gopuff, with 25%–30% of orders having issues |
| Uber Eats | Neutral (competitor, model comparison) | Same as above |
| Amazon | Bullish (partner + long-term holding of Scottish Mortgage) | Provides delivery in the UK through the Amazon website; the Prime subscription model is the reference for FAM |
| Starbucks | Bullish (strategic partnership) | During the pilot, 80% of baskets containing Starbucks items also contained non-Starbucks items; has expanded to multiple metro areas |
| Robinhood | Neutral (partnership, details undisclosed) | Financial data not disclosed |
| Nuro | Neutral (introducer, Scottish Mortgage portfolio company) | Introduced Gopuff through its management |
| Giannis (NBA player) | Neutral (new partnership, details undisclosed) | Financial terms not disclosed |
1. Yakir Gola: "We don't want to be everything to everyone, but we want to cover all the major grocery use cases — you can live on Gopuff." (Implying: Gopuff's assortment strategy is limited but complete, rather than endlessly expanding SKUs; the company is currently in the early stages of transitioning from a late-night convenience model to an all-day daily essentials platform.)
2. Tom Slater: "Competition shouldn't be viewed only through other delivery companies — physical stores should be seen as the primary competitors, and we should more effectively meet the demand they serve." (Implying: When online penetration is extremely low, growth comes from displacing offline stores, not from taking share away from other apps.)