Uber reportedly agreed to buy Postmates as part of a $ 2.65 billion share purchase agreement. Bloomberg said the deal could be announced on Monday morning.
Like other travel and transportation activities, Uber's public transit segment was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to orders for on-site shelters in the United States. Delivery on demand, however, increased, with people relying on services like Uber Eats to get food without leaving their home. According to its latest earnings report, Uber's gross on-demand bookings dropped, but its food delivery service recorded gross sales growth of 54% in its first fiscal quarter.
Earlier reports said Uber had made an offer to purchase Grubhub, another on-demand delivery service, earlier this year, but after signing the deal, it approached Postmates. Bloomberg reports that Uber and his fellow workers actually discussed it for about four years, but negotiations got more intense about a week ago.
Grubhub was eventually acquired by Just Eat Takeway as part of a $ 7.3 billion deal after failed negotiations with Uber.
With its last valuation of $ 2.4 billion in September 2019, Postmates is a smaller company than Grubhub. The company confidentially filed a publication request in February 2019, but decided not to hold on due to the "turbulent market" conditions. Until last week, a report claimed that Postmates will publicly file a stock market valuation this week with a target valuation of $ 3.9 billion - perhaps a story started in an attempt to increase valuation amid negotiations .
If the deal is made, the main competitors in the US food delivery market would be Uber Eats / Postmates against Grubhub / Takeaway against DoorDash.
In other countries, companies like Grab have also started to develop their on-demand delivery services to compensate for the losses linked to the decrease in carpool reservations. For example, Grab responded to orders for home stays in Indonesia (its main market) and in other countries in Southeast Asia by redeploying accompanying drivers for on-demand deliveries of food and essential items .
