The world of food delivery apps is about to get a little bit smaller. Grubhub has entered an agreement to acquire the Boston-based Foodler.
Foodler is headquartered in Boston and operates in top cities like New York, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Orlando, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington, Vancouver and more.
The Grubhub portfolio also includes Seamless, AllMenus and AllPages, and it spans more than 1,100 U.S. cities and London.
The two have an agreement for an all-cash transaction for Grubhub to acquire Foodler, extending Grubhub’s New England presence. The agreement will add more than $80 million of annual gross food sales in 2017, according to Grubhub.
“Foodler is proud to become a part of the national leader in online food ordering,” said Christian Dumontet, Foodler CEO, in a statement. “Foodler has continuously evolved to provide a superior user experience, and our diners will benefit from Grubhub’s robust functionality and wide-ranging restaurant network that operates in 1,100 cities across the U.S.”
Foodler was founded in 2005 and held its own in the food delivery app marketplace for years, though Dumontet did acknowledge to the Boston Globe last summer the “huge marketing muscle” of competitors such as Grubhub.
Grubhub, which is headquartered in Chicago, was founded in 2004 and, in 2013, merged with Seamless, which was founded in 1999. Grubhub, which is valued at about $2.4 billion, previously acquired another Boston-based food delivery company, DiningIn, in 2014.
Foodler takes orders with about 1,300 restaurants in the Boston area alone, but the difficulty of the business is that these restaurants often work with multiple other delivery services, as well.
“We’re thrilled to bring Foodler’s scale and its established diner base in the Northeast to Grubhub,” said Matt Maloney, Grubhub CEO, in a statement. “Its addition will enhance the Grubhub marketplace – particularly in Foodler’s hometown market of Boston – allowing us to connect our diners with an even broader range of top-rated, popular local restaurants.”
