Uber has acquired alcohol delivery service Drizly for approximately $1.1 billion in stock and cash.
When the deal closes, Drizly will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Uber, and its marketplace will be integrated with the Uber Eats app. Drizly will continue maintaining a separate app, as well.
Founded in 2012, Drizly’s on-demand alcohol marketplace works with thousands of local merchants and is designed to be fully compliant with local regulations in more than 1,400 cities across the United States.
As part of Uber, Drizly will gain access to the ride-share and food-delivery company’s technology and consumer base. In turn, delivery drivers will have more opportunities to earn with the new service.
“Wherever you want to go and whatever you need to get, our goal at Uber is to make people’s lives a little bit easier. That’s why we’ve been branching into new categories like groceries, prescriptions and, now, alcohol,” says Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
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“[Drizly co-founder and CEO Cory Rellas] and his amazing team have built Drizly into an incredible success story, profitably growing gross bookings more than 300% year-over-year. By bringing Drizly into the Uber family, we can accelerate that trajectory by exposing Drizly to the Uber audience and expanding its geographic presence into our global footprint in the years ahead.”
With the coronavirus pandemic negatively impacting Uber’s ride-hailing business, the company has turned much of its attention to its food-delivery unit Uber Eats, which in Q2 2020 saw bookings increase more than 100% year-on-year.
To bolster its position in the space, Uber acquired competitor Postmates in a $2.65 billion all-stock deal in July.
With Drizly, Uber currently anticipates that more than 90% of the consideration to be paid to the Drizly stockholders in the transaction will consist of shares of Uber common stock, with the balance to be paid in cash.
The acquisition is expected to close within the first half of 2021.