Yelp, the San Francisco internet company that crowdsources reviews of restaurants and other businesses across a wide range of metropolitan areas, is getting into the food delivery business.
Today, the company announced that it has agreed to acquire Eat24, a food company that delivers food to homes on behalf of partner restaurants. Yelp is paying $134 million for the company—$75 million in cash and the rest in stock. Eat24 works with 20,000 restaurants in over 1,500 cities around the US.
With Yelp’s reviews site, you can find new restaurants to suit your tastes, and now that the company is acquiring Eat24, the idea is that it will also let you take the next step: order food to your door.
“With this acquisition, we gain more tools and expertise to help engage our users from discovery through transaction in a key vertical for Yelp,” Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s co-founder and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
The move is just one way that some of the internet’s most recognizable names are branching into online food delivery as a way to boost their existing businesses. Last August, payments company Square bought Caviar, a high-end, app-based food delivery service. And that same month, ride-hailing startup Uber tested a fast food delivery service called UberFRESH, which aimed to deliver meals from local restaurants to customers in under 10 minutes.
In each case, food delivery can provide an added source of revenue, but it can also help these companies push the use of their existing services. The market for food delivery is hardly small, and mobile technologies can streamline the process, potentially expanding the business even further.
source: wired.com BY DAVEY ALBA
With Yelp’s reviews site, you can find new restaurants to suit your tastes, and now that the company is acquiring Eat24, the idea is that it will also let you take the next step: order food to your door.
“With this acquisition, we gain more tools and expertise to help engage our users from discovery through transaction in a key vertical for Yelp,” Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s co-founder and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
The move is just one way that some of the internet’s most recognizable names are branching into online food delivery as a way to boost their existing businesses. Last August, payments company Square bought Caviar, a high-end, app-based food delivery service. And that same month, ride-hailing startup Uber tested a fast food delivery service called UberFRESH, which aimed to deliver meals from local restaurants to customers in under 10 minutes.
In each case, food delivery can provide an added source of revenue, but it can also help these companies push the use of their existing services. The market for food delivery is hardly small, and mobile technologies can streamline the process, potentially expanding the business even further.
source: wired.com BY DAVEY ALBA
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