Uber plans to gobble up delivery rival Postmates in $2.6 billion deal

Enlarge / Bicycle couriers making deliveries to Uber Eats customers in Sao Paulo in April, 2019 (a year before the novel coronavirus pandemic). (credit: Joel Carillet | Getty Images)

Uber is trying again to acquire a food delivery rival after it wiped out on its last attempt earlier this year. The company said today it plans chow down on Postmates in a deal valued at $2.6 billion.

The companies announced the all-stock transaction this morning. Uber said the companies' businesses are "highly complementary," as they have different customer bases in different parts of the country. Uber in its press release praised Postmates as "an early pioneer of 'delivery-as-a-service,'" a truly spectacular buzzword jam for our era.

What Uber probably wants, though, is for someone to deliver it a profit. The company lost $2.9 billion in the first quarter of this year (period ending March 31), after losing $1.1 billion each in Q4 and Q3 and a whopping $5 billion in the quarter before that.

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