The companies announced the $1.1 billion deal in a jointnews release, explaining that Drizly would maintain its marketplace but that it
would eventually also appear in the Uber Eats app.
Uber said Drizly is the “leading on-demand alcohol
marketplace in the United States” with a presence in more than 1,400 cities in
a majority of U.S. states. It is designed to be “fully compliant” with local
regulations in those places, Uber said.
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The Washington Post reported last year that Uber was
facilitating alcohol deliveries without ID’ing recipients, as couriers in some
cases left to-go-cocktails at the door. Restaurants were taking advantage of
new to-go-alcohol rules in markets where Uber did not allow alcohol deliveries
in its app. Regulators from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage
Control investigated and found that food delivery apps had been “routinely
delivering alcoholic beverages to minors,” though it did not name specific
services.
Since then, Uber has rolled out alcohol delivery further,
enabling the app in new markets to ID recipients at the door.
Uber’s acquisition of Drizly aims to make alcohol delivery a
permanent fixture on its app.
The deal follows an earlier pandemic-driven move to buy food
delivery app Postmates in July, when the companies announced a $2.65 billion
all-stock deal that consolidated the app-based food delivery industry into
three major players: DoorDash, Uber and Grubhub.
Uber has historically absorbed the services it acquires into
its main apps, drawing on their consumer data and customer bases while relying
on its massive market and streamlined user interface to drive up sales.
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Uber touted what it sees as the numerous advantages arising
from the acquisition: integrating Drizly into its routing system and giving it
exposure to Uber’s massive customer base, while giving drivers more delivery
opportunities and consumers more options in its app.
Uber absorbed e-bike service JUMP into its app after
acquiring it in 2018, proceeded to sideline or lay off much of its staff, and
then offloaded it last year.
More recently Uber laid off more than 180 Postmates employees,
the New York Times reported, about 15 percent of that app’s workforce following
the acquisition it announced in July.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement that Uber
could accelerate Drizly’s “trajectory by exposing Drizly to the Uber audience
and expanding its geographic presence into our global footprint in the years
ahead.”