The news of the new capital for Flink comes at the tail end of a tumultuous time in the instant delivery market.

This branch of e-commerce — in which online retailers offer a smaller assortment of goods that they house in distributed “dark stores” and offer for delivery in an hour or less — made a huge splash early during the COVID-19 pandemic. They came in as a handy way for consumers who were either sheltering in place or interested in maintaining social distance to get items they might have bought at a store in the past.