News

Uber acquires meal delivery service Postmates

Uber will acquire San Francisco-based food delivery company Postmates for approximately USD $2.65 billion (AUD $3.79b) in a bid to accelerate a path to profitability.

Postmates has been an early pioneer of “delivery-as-a-service,” which complements Uber’s growing efforts in the delivery of groceries, essentials, and other goods.

This transaction brings together Uber’s global Rides and Eats platform with Postmates’ distinctive delivery business.

In the U.S. Postmates is highly complementary to Uber Eats, with differentiated geographic focus areas and customer demographics, and Postmates’ strong relationships with small- and medium-sized restaurants, particularly local favorites that draw customers to the Postmates brand.

For restaurants and merchants, Postmates and Uber Eats will together offer more tools and technology to more easily and cost-effectively connect with a bigger consumer base.\

Following the closing of the transaction, Uber intends to keep the consumer-facing Postmates app running separately, supported by a more efficient, combined merchant and delivery network.

Uber Eats has seen a 89 percent year-over-year gross bookings growth in April excluding India, however there is gaining pressure from competition such as DoorDash and Menulog.

Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO said more people and more restaurants have come to use its services, Q2 bookings on Uber Eats are up more than 100 percent year on year.

Bastian Lehmann, Postmates Co-Founder and CEO said Uber and Postmates have been strong allies working together to advocate and create the best practices across the industry, especially for our couriers.

“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,” Bastian said.

Uber estimates that it will issue about 84 million shares of common stock for 100 per cent of the fully diluted equity of Postmates, the company said in a statement Monday.

Send this to a friend