In 2005 a technology entrepreneur named Bo Bendtsen bought out almost everyone who had started Just Eat. Not quite everyone. One founder, Jesper Buch, stayed.
That is the part of the story that rarely makes the headlines. Just Eat began in Kolding, a Danish town, launching in August 2001 with 15 employees. A Danish encyclopedia entry says the concept had been developed in parallel by two groups, who then chose to merge and work together. Sources disagree on who exactly the five Danish founders were, so only Buch's role is firm.
A Danish encyclopedia entry says the concept had been developed in parallel by two groups, who then chose to merge and work together.
The early years were small and quiet. Then Bendtsen bought the founders and early investors out and moved the business to the United Kingdom. Buch kept his place, and according to a Danish-language piece he later pulled Klaus Nyengaard to London. In 2006 the company hired a Welsh executive, David Buttress, as chief executive.
Why Britain? The sources do not give the founders' reasoning. What is documented is the model: restaurants paid a joining fee of GBP699 and a 13 to 14 percent commission on each order, and more than 90 percent of revenue came from those commissions. It was a toll on a habit Britain already had.
The money followed. In 2009 Index Ventures and Venrex invested GBP10.5 million. Greylock and Redpoint put in GBP30 million in 2011, and Vitruvian led GBP40 million in 2012. On 3 April 2014 the company listed in London. By 2018 it had 3,600 employees and 26.3 million customers, and a 2017 Guardian report put its value at about GBP5.5 billion.
The cost showed in the scrutiny. In 2017 an audit found 35 unlicensed restaurants with no hygiene rating on the platform, and a 2018 BBC investigation found takeaways rated zero listed on the app. In 2023 it cut 1,700 UK delivery jobs and moved drivers to freelance status.
The merger with Takeaway.com, announced in 2019 at about GBP9 billion, ended Just Eat's independence. Buttress left in 2017 to run the Dragons rugby club. Danish operations had stopped by March 2026.
There is an odd symmetry. A company born in a small Danish town was rebuilt in London by a buyer who removed nearly all its founders, and the one who remained is the name people still link to it. For a founder, the lesson is about ownership: being the one who is still in the room when the plan changes may matter more than having been there first.