Uber Is Buying Drizly
Uber Technologies has acquired the Drizly alcohol delivery service for $1.1 billion as part of an effort to diversify the range of products available through the Uber Eats service.
The transportation-and-delivery service and Drizly announced that they have reached an agreement for Uber to acquire Drizly for approximately $1.1 billion in stock and cash.
Drizly is an on-demand alcohol marketplace, available and designed to be fully compliant with local regulations in more than 1,400 cities across a majority of U.S. states. Drizly works with thousands of local merchants to provide consumers with a selection of beer, wine and spirits.
After the completion of the transaction, Drizly will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Uber. Drizly’s marketplace will eventually be integrated with the Uber Eats app, while also maintaining a separate Drizly app.
The move comes after Uber announced another expansion — this one via on-demand prescription delivery to New York City. As for Drizly, in August it closed a $50 million Series C funding round, led by New York-based investment firm Avenir, with participation by Tiger Global and other existing investors. The investment comes as Boston-based Drizly has marked growth of more than 350% in 2020 compared with the prior year, while achieving sustained profitability.
With the Uber deal, Drizly plans to innovate and expand independently in its fast-growing and competitive sector, while also gaining access to the advanced mobile marketplace technologies of the world’s largest food delivery and ridesharing platform. Merchants on Drizly will be able to benefit from Uber’s best-in-class routing technology and significant consumer base. Delivery drivers will have even more ways to earn. And Uber’s rewards and subscription programs will be able to deliver even greater value to consumers with new benefits and perks on Drizly.
“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. Cory 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,” said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, referring to Drizly Co-Founder and CEO Cory Rellas.
“Drizly has spent the last 8 years building the infrastructure, technology and partnerships to bring the consumer a shopping experience they deserve. It’s a proud day for the Drizly team as we recognize what we’ve accomplished to date but also with the humility that much remains to be done to fulfill our vision. With this in mind, we are thrilled to join a world-class Uber team whose platform will accelerate Drizly on its mission to be there when it matters — committed to life’s moments and the people who create them,” said Rellas.
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 subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions and is expected to close within the first half of 2021.
