Uber buys food delivery service Postmates for $2.65B in an all-stock deal
I met Bastian Lehman, CEO and co-founder … Kari Astillero / Micky : Uber confirms $2.65 billion all-stock purchase of Postmates Bhumika Khatri / Inc42 Media : Daily Tech Briefing: Paytm Solidifies Insurance Plans, Uber Buys Postmates & More The Information : Why Uber's Postmates Deal Doesn't Deserve Celebration: The Information's Tech Briefing Bloomberg : Uber to Buy Postmates for $2.65 Billion to Expand Delivery Tweets: Amy Klobuchar / @amyklobuchar : Uber is again trying to buy out a competitor during the pandemic. If the merger goes through, the top two companies will control 75% of the food delivery market. Less competition = less money in consumer's pockets. The FTC or DOJ must investigate. https://www.nytimes.com/... Dan Price / @danpriceseattle : Companies like Uber Eats + GrubHub charge struggling restaurants 30% or more because they can: they have a monopoly. It's likely to get worse with consolidation - now Uber is buying Postmates. If you can, order directly from the restaurant https://www.nytimes.com/... Sally Shin / @sallyshin : “Uber has committed to provide bridge financing to Postmates during the process of obtaining regulatory approvals” aka Postmates running out of money https://s23.q4cdn.com/... Blake Robbins / @blakeir : Postmates API has quietly become one of the most interesting aspects of their business. Their API enables any company to offer last-mile delivery service. Over the past year, I've heard over a dozen pitches from companies using Postmates API to handle all logitistics/delivery. https://twitter.com/... Erin Griffith / @eringriffith : I wonder how my friends over at couriersofreddit feel about Uber buying Postmates ??? https://twitter.com/... Brett Bivens / @brettbivens : Not a bad last week for Spark Capital. → Postmates — Series B at $73m valuation, $2.65b sale to Uber → Discord — Series A at $22m, round at $3.4b from Index → Mirror — Series A at $68m, $500m sale to Lululemon → Anduril — “Seed” at $97m, round at $1.7b from a16z https://twitter.com/... @faris : “Food delivery is not profitable, nor is Uber's core ride-hailing business. But the company is hoping that with restaurants closed to in-person dining, more people will be ordering takeout in the future.” https://twitter.com/... @alex : Uber +5.5% after the open, post-Postmates deal news M.G. Siegler / @mgsiegler : Huge congrats to @Basti and his @Postmates team. True pioneers. Also will go down as one of the greatest pivots of all time... (can you even guess which one they were a decade ago?) 🚲🚀 https://techcrunch.com/... @adam22 : Lmao how is it legal to just buy your biggest competitor so you don't have to compete on price or service anymore. Insane. https://www.nytimes.com/... Patrick Daugherty / @rotopat : When the company that has never made money buys another company that has never made money for $2.65B during the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression? Normal economy https://twitter.com/... Sara Mauskopf / @sm : Congrats to the Postmates team! https://investor.uber.com/... Dara Khosrowshahi / @dkhos : Proud to announce that @UberEats is joining forces with @Postmates. Greater selection + improved delivery = an even better experience for everyone. Important info: https://t.uber.com/... Adam Banks / @adambanksdotcom : Postmates never made it to the UK, but it'll be interesting to see if Uber is looking for comparable acquisitions https://twitter.com/... Mike Dudas / @mdudas : You really have to admire the tenacity and courage of @Basti and team. They competed in the most unforgiving of consumer tech markets against giants, were often predicted to fail, yet built a must have team and biz. @Uber needs this entrepreneur. Win. https://www.bloomberg.com/... Aditi Shrivastava / @aditis90 : WOW. Can food delivery ever make money? Just doesn't seem like it can standalone be a business anywhere, even globally. https://twitter.com/... Alastair Thomson / @financedircfo : What on earth are they thinking of... Uber's board must be smoking something especially strong this week... Still I suppose it means they'll burn through their cash faster and bring all this nonsense to an end sooner rather than later...(small mercies...) https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This deal is Uber's second swing at delivery consolidation in two months: its offer to acquire Grubhub stalled over price, and within weeks Uber pivoted to Postmates at roughly the same ~$2.6B valuation reported when talks leaked at the end of June. Postmates is a willing seller — it has fielded interest from DoorDash, Walmart, and Uber since mid-2019 while its IPO kept slipping, so an all-stock exit ends that limbo.
The antitrust angle is live from day one: Senator Amy Klobuchar flagged that Uber is 'again trying to buy out a competitor during the pandemic,' with the top two players controlling 75% of US food delivery if the merger closes — the same concern that shadowed the Grubhub talks.
First-order effects
- Postmates shareholders take Uber stock instead of pursuing the long-delayed IPO, and CEO Bastian Lehman's company becomes Uber's delivery arm rather than an independent rival to DoorDash.
- The merger puts Uber and DoorDash in a two-horse race for US market share, with Grubhub — the target Uber walked away from — left outside the consolidated top tier.
Second-order effects
- Klobuchar's 75%-concentration framing hands antitrust reviewers a ready-made case, raising the odds the FTC examines whether pandemic-era delivery mergers lock in pricing power over restaurants and couriers.
- DoorDash, now facing a consolidated #2 with Uber's cross-selling from rides, is pushed to defend its lead on courier supply and restaurant exclusivity rather than on fundraising.
Third-order effects
- If the consolidation pattern holds, US food delivery settles into a two-to-three-platform market where the remaining independents (Grubhub among them) become acquisition targets or niche players.
- Acquired units can be re-carved: Uber later spun Postmates' robotics unit out as Serve Robotics, showing that platform buyers strip targets for the assets they want and divest the rest — a template for future delivery M&A.
The trend: Pandemic-era stock deals are consolidating US food delivery around a handful of platform owners, with antitrust scrutiny of concentration becoming the binding constraint on further mergers.