Uber buys delivery service Postmates for $ 2.6 billion

the Company Uber Technologies has agreed to purchase the delivery service Postmates for 2.65 billion dollars, according to the NY Times and Bloomberg News, citing people familiar with the transaction.

the Purchase was approved by the Board of Directors of Uber and should soon be officially announced. According to the informant of Agency, to lead the combined business of grocery will be the head of Uber Eats Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty. It is unknown what role is chief Executive officer of Postmates Bastian Lehmann, and if he’ll take it all.

last week, Reuters reported that Postmates has revived plans for an initial public offering of stock. During the last round of investment Postmates has attracted 225 million dollars. Evaluation of the company amounted to $ 2.4 billion.

Founded in 2011 and based in San Francisco, the company Postmates, according to analyst firm Second Measure, in may this year, he held 8% of the U.S. market of food delivery.

According to research company Edison Trends, which leads the newspaper, the deal will help to expand the unit for food delivery Uber — Uber Eats — which already has international reach and is the second largest in the U.S. by market share after DoorDash Inc.

This is not the first Uber talks about food delivery. So, in may of this year, the media reported that the company intends to purchase the delivery service Grubhub, which operates in the US and the UK.

Uber is betting on the delivery of food to maintain your business during a pandemic coronavirus, as demand for travel fell. In its earnings report for the first quarter, Uber has reported that gross revenues from the main taxi business dropped by 80% in April compared to the same period last year, while gross revenues from the segment of food delivery increased by more than 50% over the same period.