Uber Technologies agreed to buy workplace catering platform ezCater in an all-cash transaction valued at $2.3B, the companies announced Tuesday.
ezCater lets businesses order from more than 140K restaurants nationwide for meetings, events, and recurring enterprise meal programs.
The Boston company generated over $2.5B in gross bookings over the trailing twelve months, growing in the high teens year over year. It's profitable on a non-GAAP operating income basis and is expected to be margin accretive to Uber.
The deal is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in the coming months.
The appeal is the order size
ezCater's average order value exceeds $400, far above a typical consumer delivery ticket. Those orders are scheduled rather than impulsive, generated by corporate meetings, employee meal programs, and events.
Corporate catering carries higher order values, recurring volume and B2B contract economics instead of consumer churn. Uber plans to combine ezCater with Uber Eats and the corporate client base of Uber for Business.
A big exit for a bootstrapped company
ezCater was founded in 2007 and bootstrapped for seven years before raising a first $4M round in 2014. The acquisition is the latest in a run of moves by Uber to expand its food delivery business.
Uber recently launched a $14.8B cash tender offer for Germany's Delivery Hero ($DHER.DE), paying €41.50 per share for operations across 50 markets.
To ease antitrust concerns, Delivery Hero agreed to sell operations in 14 overlapping markets, including Spain, Sweden, and Turkey, to SSW Partners for roughly $1.6B.
Uber's food business has been growing faster than its ridehail service, which makes delivery the natural place to spend.
An all-cash structure of this size also removes the leverage and dilution questions that typically move an acquirer's stock on announcement. The open question is whether corporate catering adds genuine adjacency economics or signals that growth in the core delivery business is maturing.
