Adding to its delivery options, Uber will acquire alcohol delivery service Drizly for $1.1 billion in stock and cash. Drizly will be added to Uber’s food delivery app and will also have an app of its own.
“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,” Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO, said.
Last year, Uber bought Postmates Inc. for a stock deal worth $2.65 billion. The acquisition made Uber the second-largest food-delivery company in the U.S. after DoorDash Inc. Drizly was founded in 2012 and is the largest online marketplace for alcohol in North America. According to the Wall Street Journal, 44% of people that purchase alcohol online-only began doing so last year.
“This was a sleepy online category,” Cory Rellas, Drizly Chief Executive, said. “Covid switched that overnight.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has rattled every industry, especially the food industry. The way that people are consuming things is changing.
“Where people drink and how people think about it, I think that has fundamentally shifted,” Rellas said.
In the third quarter of last year, Uber reported an 18% drop in revenue and more than $1 billion in losses.
