The founders of Turkish food and grocery delivery startup Getir are reportedly suing Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company for at least $700 million, claiming the fund failed to hand over promised assets when the company was restructured, according to the Financial Times (FT) on Monday.
Getir’s co-founders, Nazım Salur and Serkan Borançılı, claim that they have "suffered significant loss" after Mubadala allegedly reneged on a 2024 agreement to transfer a group of assets to them, including a valuable tech finance app, Getir Finance, according to a lawsuit filed with London’s High Court on Friday, the report said.
The breach-of-contract claim comes as Mubadala and Uber announced last week that Getir’s food delivery business in Türkiye was being sold to Uber for $335 million.
Founded in Istanbul in 2015, Getir was one of the pioneers of the food and grocery delivery businesses that boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was valued close to $12 billion in 2022 and has seen quick expansion into several European markets and the U.S., but slowing demand for delivery services around the world after the pandemic has seen it significantly scale back its operations.
In June 2024, the company said that it had agreed on a restructuring with Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala to lead a $250 million cash injection and acquire majority control of its Turkish grocery operations.
Under the plans, the remaining assets would be housed in a standalone business, including its FreshDirect grocery service in New York, in which the founders would have a controlling stake.
However, Salur and Borançılı allege in the lawsuit that only the most unprofitable assets – FreshDirect and the online shopping platform n11 – were ever transferred.
They claim they are still owed assets such as Getir Finance, which was valued at $510 million last year, and that various Mubadala entities have conspired against them to breach the agreement, according to the FT, citing the lawsuit.
"The assets which were supposed to have been hived out and transferred to their control were never so transferred (save for the two most unprofitable and liability-laden entities)," lawyers for the founders said in the claim.
Instead, Mubadala made them an offer in December 2024 that "deviated considerably from the terms the parties had agreed [...] and was on terms which were highly disadvantageous to the founders."
In January 2025, Salur vowed to take legal action against the Emirati fund, suggesting that Mubadala "is completely breaching our binding agreement in June 2024 to split Getir into two groups."
Mubadala declined to comment to FT. The sovereign wealth fund is yet to file a defense to the claim, the newspaper said.
Getir in Türkiye currently offers services in several categories, including market, food and water, while also having integrated the Getir Locals option, which offers users the ability to order from local markets such as butchers and flower shops. It has also integrated the BiTaksi service into the app, the ride-hailing company also founded by Salur, in 2013.
