Take Eat Easy
Belgian-French food-delivery pioneer ran out of cash before reaching scale. The Series B that didn't close became one of Europe's most-cited startup failure post-mortems.
Take Eat Easy was a Food Delivery startup founded in 2012 in France. It raised €16M before collapsing in 2016 — 4 years of runway burned. IdeaProof's AI Failure Score: 62/100, driven by brussels-founded (later paris-headquartered) food-delivery startup take eat easy, launched in 2012 by siblings adrien and chloé roose with karim slaoui, ceased trading on 26 jul 2016 — the same week it announced its 1-millionth delivery. after raising €16m and expanding to paris, london, madrid and berlin, take eat easy failed to close a series c round it needed to compete with deliveroo and ubereats, and filed for juridical reorganisation. it was one of the first high-profile 2010s food-delivery casualties in europe.. The shutdown affected employees, investors, and the broader Food Delivery ecosystem. This case study breaks down the timeline, root causes, competitors that won, and replicable lessons for founders validating similar ideas today.
Why did Take Eat Easy fail?
Take Eat Easy failed in 2016 after 4 years of operation, losing €16M in raised capital. The root cause was brussels-founded (later paris-headquartered) food-delivery startup take eat easy, launched in 2012 by siblings adrien and chloé roose with karim slaoui, ceased trading on 26 jul 2016 — the same week it announced its 1-millionth delivery. after raising €16m and expanding to paris, london, madrid and berlin, take eat easy failed to close a series c round it needed to compete with deliveroo and ubereats, and filed for juridical reorganisation. it was one of the first high-profile 2010s food-delivery casualties in europe.. Key lesson: Belgian-French food-delivery pioneer ran out of cash before reaching scale. The Series B that didn't close became one of Europe's most-cited startup failure post-mortems.
2012 → 2016
€16M
Food Delivery
France
IdeaProof AI Failure Score
What Happened: The Timeline
2012
Founded in Brussels by Adrien Roose, Chloé Roose and Karim Slaoui
2015
€10M Series B led by Rocket Internet, DN Capital, expands to Paris, London, Berlin, Madrid
2016-07
Announces 1 millionth delivery — a week before shutdown
2016-07-26
Series C collapses at term-sheet stage; company ceases trading, files for juridical reorganisation
Causal Chain
This is our reading of the causal chain — separated from the verifiable facts above. Timeline dates, funding numbers and filings are facts (see methodology); root / proximate / terminal attribution is judgement based on public evidence.
Product built ahead of validated demand: the offering solved a problem too small, too rare, or too well-served by free/existing substitutes to sustain a venture-scale business.
- Sector context: Food Delivery in France, 4 years of runway.
2016-07: Announces 1 millionth delivery — a week before shutdown
2016-07-26: Series C collapses at term-sheet stage; company ceases trading, files for juridical reorganisation
Base rates
A single failure is an anecdote. These base rates give you the denominator — how common this outcome is across all startups matching Take Eat Easy's profile. Sources are third-party; we do not restate them as our own claims.
of food-delivery and quick-commerce startups founded in the 2020–2021 boom were shut down or absorbed within 3 years — a textbook winner-take-most category.
Sifted / CB Insights coverage (2024)of startups ultimately fail — including ~10% that fail in the first year and the rest across the following decade.
Startup Genome / CB Insights aggregate (2024)of new US employer businesses survive past their 10th year (Bureau of Labor Statistics BED series).
US Bureau of Labor Statistics — BED (2024)of Series A rounds ever graduate to Series B; the rest run out of runway or pivot without a follow-on.
CB Insights Venture Capital Funnel (2023)Full Analysis
Brussels/Paris-based Take Eat Easy raised €16M from Rocket Internet and DN Capital to compete in European food delivery. By mid-2016, the company needed another €15M to extend runway but had been negotiating with potential acquirers and investors for months. Founder Adrien Roose published one of the most-shared startup failure post-mortems on Medium, detailing how the team chased a deal that never closed while burning cash. Final shutdown in July 2016 with all 160 employees losing their jobs. The post-mortem remains a canonical European startup-failure read.
Key Lessons Learned
1. Growth-stage delivery is a two-horse market
By early 2016 the food-delivery market had globalised around Deliveroo and UberEats. Investors saw no path for a #3 European player to reach category-leadership economics.
2. Milestone PR ≠ investor confidence
Take Eat Easy celebrated 1M orders one week before shutdown. Vanity milestones don't move Series C investors focused on contribution margin and market share vs. category winners.
3. A signed term sheet can still fall through
The Roose siblings' public post-mortem showed the Series C died in due diligence weeks before signing. Never assume closing until the wire arrives — keep a 6-month emergency runway.
Frequently Asked Questions
Sources & Confidence
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