Wolt – the popular food app from Finland has arrived to Budapest

In the beginning, they deliver on the Pest side to the area surrounded by Hungária körút from almost 20 restaurants. They plan to increase the delivery area and the number of the restaurants week-by-week as demand grows.

Wolt is a very user friendly platform (a website and an application) which aim to deliver the best food in town. It can be used for delivery orders – no matter if you order to your home/to the office or to the middle of a park/the riverside – and for takeaway as well. Thanks to own delivery service even those restaurants can join who did not have the chance to deliver food before.

Miki Kuusi, CEO said that Budapest is well suitable for expansion:

“Budapest is one of the liveliest cities in Europe with a buzzing restaurant scene. Food plays a crucial part in the whole city’s culture, which is why we’re super excited to make it even easier for people to discover and get great food”

Kuusi has this to say about Wolt’s goals:

“We want to offer the simplest, smoothest way to get great food and combine that with a fanatical customer service.”

It’s always very important to the company to be local in every country they operate. That’s why the operation is led by a country team here in Budapest. “Wolt takes it very seriously to hire an employee in every country who know local needs the best. The development of the platform happens in Finland but the local marketing, the cooperation with the restaurants and the management of the couriers are all the tasks of a local team. The team can react to customer messages in real-time thanks to the locally operating customer service. In opening hours customers can reach us in the app by a live chat, customer support team is not just helping to the customers but the restaurants and the couriers as well” told Ákos Tajta the General Manager of the Hungarian office.

The Wolt courier partners do delivery with bikes, scooters and cars as well. It depends on the location which of the above is selected by the system for a given delivery order. Thanks to this algorithm-led delivery system the average delivery time is around 30 minutes. The delivery fee depends on the distance between the restaurant and the user, it starts from 499 HUF base price.

The user can see right after placing an order that by what type of vehicle and in what time will his/her order be delivered. After this the user can follow every step in real time in the application or by the push notifications it sends. The courier is also can be seen on a map while moving.

In Finland, more than 130 000 users and 500 restaurants have signed up for Wolt in less than a year.

“We believe in building something simple that people really love to use. This leads to them telling their friends about Wolt, which has been the cause for our rapid growth so far”, Miki Kuusi explains.

CEO Kuusi was recently chosen on the Forbes 30-under-30 list in consumer tech, while Elias Aalto, one of the six Wolt co-founders, was the first person in the Nordics to win the prestigious Apple Design Award.

Wolt is backed up by some strong investors. Investors include Skype founder Niklas Zennström, who as CEO grew the video and voice call service from zero to more than 300 million users. Also on board are Nokia chairman Risto Siilasmaa, and Ilkka Paananen, who runs the multi-billion euro gaming success Supercell.

The actual list of the restaurants is always updated in the app and new restaurants also will be announced on Wolt’s facebook page.

HOW WOLT WORKS?

1. Download the app free for iPhone or Android
2. Register with your e-mail address or Facebook account
3. Pick your favourite from the restaurants
4. Build your order and choose if you want it home-delivered or takeaway
5. If you order delivery, you’ll get minute-by-minute updates on your orders progress and even see it approach you on a map
6. The payment happens automatically in the background through your card and receipts go straight to your email as well
7. Share your own promo code because this way both you and your friend will get 1500 HUF credit