This archive report was first published on 7 July 2020.
On July 6, 2020, ride-hailing giant Uber confirmed its acquisition of food delivery startup Postmates in an all-stock deal valued at $2.65 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Uber plans to run Postmates and its own food delivery app, Uber Eats, alongside each other, with some back-end functionality merged. This will enable drivers for both services to deliver orders from both platforms. The new merged entity will be run by Pierre-Dimitri, Vice President of Uber Eats.
Postmates was founded in 2011 by Sam Street, Sean Plaice, and Bastian Lehmann. The startup has grown to a user base of 500,000 recurrent users, served by 600,000 merchants across the states. Postmates was one of the first services to facilitate meal delivery via a mobile app.
Uber was also in talks to acquire Grubhub for $7.3 billion but lost the deal to European delivery service Just Eat Takeaway. Postmates had filed for an Initial Public Offering in 2019 but never went public. The startup raised private capital last year in a deal valued at $2.4 billion.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi stated, "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." 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."
