Ride-hailing giant, Uber has confirmed its acquisition of food delivery startup, Postmates. According to Bloomberg, the deal is reportedly an all-stock deal valued at US$ 2.6 Billion.
Uber is reportedly planning to run Postmates, and its own food delivery app, Uber Eats, alongside each other. It will however merge some of the back end functionality. Drivers for both services will be able to deliver orders from both platforms. The new merged entity will be run by Uber Eats, Vice President, Pierre-Dimitri.
Postmates was founded in 2011 by Sam Street, Sean Plaice and Bastian Lehmann. It has since grown to a user base of 500,000 recurrent users, who are served by 600,000 merchants across the states. Postmates was one of the first services to facilitate the delivery of meals via a mobile app. It quickly became less popular as competition rose over the years.
Uber was also looking to buy US-based, Grubhub for US$ 7.3 Billion, but lost the acquisition to European delivery service, ‘Just Eat Takeaway.’
Postmates had filed paperwork for an Initial Public Offering but never managed to go public in 2019. It however raised private capital last year in a deal valued at US$ 2.4 Billion.
Follow up to: Uber in talks to buy San Francisco based postmates for $2.6 billion
Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement, “Uber and Postmates have long shared a belief that platforms like ours can power much more than just food delivery—they can be a hugely important part of local commerce and communities, all the more important during crises like COVID-19. As more people and more restaurants have come to use our services, Q2 bookings on Uber Eats are up more than 100% year on year.”
He added, “We’re thrilled to welcome Postmates to the Uber family as we innovate together to deliver better experiences for consumers, delivery people, and merchants across the country.”
Postmates co-founder and CEO, Bastian Lehmann, said, “Over the past eight years we have been focused on a single mission: enable anyone to have anything delivered to them on-demand. Joining forces with Uber will continue that mission as we continue to build Postmates while creating an even stronger platform that brings this mission to life for our customers. Uber and Postmates have been strong allies working together to advocate and create the best practices across our industry, especially for our couriers. Together we can ensure that as our industry continues to grow, it will do so for the benefit of everyone in the communities we serve.”