Selena Gomez

December 2021 was the top of that market

Gopuff was valued at roughly US$15 billion when Gomez became a strategic partner and investor in December 2021. That date matters. Instant-delivery and quick-commerce companies were raising enormous sums through 2021 on the expectation that rapid delivery would become a default consumer habit worth funding at almost any cost.

The sector repriced sharply afterwards. Through 2022 and beyond, funding for quick commerce contracted, several well-capitalised competitors were acquired or shut down, and valuations across the category fell substantially from their peaks. That is market history rather than a specific claim about this company, whose current position is not something to infer from outside — but a valuation struck at the top of a cycle is a fact about the entry price, and entry price is most of what determines a return.

“Strategic partner and investor” bundles two things

The description given at the time was strategic partner and investor, and those are separable. The investor half is a financial position. The strategic half is a commercial arrangement — promotion, product collaboration, use of her name and audience — which is work, and work is normally compensated.

When a single announcement bundles both, it becomes impossible from outside to tell how much capital was actually at risk. She may have invested substantially, or the equity may have been consideration for the partnership, or both. Terms were not disclosed, which is the norm. The practical consequence is that this position cannot be read as a straightforward statement of conviction about the company at that valuation, because we do not know what she paid for it.

If this made the sector interesting rather than the celebrity, start with how to begin investing — and, if private companies are what caught your eye, how angel investing actually works.