#Uber acquiring food-delivery app Postmates for $2.65B

Uber is acquiring food-delivery app Postmates for $2.65 billion in stock, less than a month after it tried and failed to acquire rival Grubhub.

The combination of Uber’s UberEats food-delivery app with Postmates will control 37 percent of the food delivery business in the US and would be second to Doordash, which controls 45 percent of the market, according to Edison Trends.

Grubhub, which agreed last month to be acquired by Netherlands-based Just Eat Takeaway.com, controls 17 percent of the US market and the majority of its business comes from transactions in New York.

“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,” said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in a statement.

Khosrowshahi also said Uber Eats’ bookings in the second quarter were up by more than 100 percent compared to a year ago.

The all-stock deal was approved by the boards of both companies, but is subject to regulatory approval.

Postmates is the smallest of the major food delivery apps companies — and had recently filed paperwork to become a publicly held company — providing delivery services of general merchandise not just food.

“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,” Postmates chief executive and co-founder Bastian Lehmann said in a statement.

Shares of Uber rose by more than 8 percent in pre-market trading.