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Uber has agreed to acquire America’s largest alcohol delivery app Drizly for around $ 1.1 billion, a deal that will help the tech giant grow its delivery business.
Those involved in the deal negotiations said the San Francisco-based rideshare company beat rival food delivery app companies to buy Drizly, which has grown rapidly during the pandemic as consumers l ‘using to buy beer, wine and spirits while staying at home.
Uber plans to integrate Drizly’s infrastructure into the Uber eats app, while retaining the existing stand-alone service. Boston-based Drizly will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Uber.
The deal comes months after Uber acquired its US rival Postmates for $ 2.65 billion, and will be paid with more than 90% in Uber shares, the rest in cash. Uber shares rose more than 7% after the announcement.
Uber said the deal would allow it to be “fully compliant with local regulations in more than 1,400 cities in a majority of US states.”
The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2021 and is subject to regulatory approval.
Drizly co-founder and chief executive Cory Rellas is expected to join Uber in a leadership role and will focus on growing the company’s alcohol delivery business, people briefed on the matter said.
“Cory and his amazing team have made Drizly an incredible success, profitably increasing gross bookings by over 300% year over year,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber.
The addition of alcohol sales by Uber is the latest effort to diversify the products available through delivery apps, which have seen increasing demand during the pandemic.
It comes after Uber’s deal to acquire Latin America-focused grocery delivery app Corner shop, which it uses to develop in other markets. In November, Philadelphia-based grocery delivery app GoPuff announced it would acquire west coast liquor retailer BevMo! in a deal worth $ 350 million.
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