Postmates is a food delivery service, founded in 2011, and acquired by

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), package ...

in 2020. It offers local delivery of restaurant-prepared meals and other goods. It is headquartered in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. , Postmates operates in 2,940

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

cities. Postmates primarily competes with

Grubhub Grubhub Inc. is an American online and mobile prepared food ordering and delivery platform. The company is based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 2004, it is a subsidiary of the Dutch company Just Eat Takeaway since 2021. Grubhub has been criti ...

DoorDash DoorDash, Inc. is an American company that operates an online food ordering and food delivery platform. The company is based in San Francisco, California. It went public in December 2020 on NYSE and trades under the symbol DASH. With a 56% mar ...

, and its sister service

Uber Eats Uber Eats is an online food ordering and delivery platform launched by Uber in 2014. Meals are delivered by couriers using cars, scooters, bikes, or on foot. It is operational in over 6,000 cities across 45 countries as of 2021. The process of ...

. The company has been criticized for antitrust price manipulation.

History

Postmates was founded in 2011 by

Bastian Lehmann Postmates is a food delivery service, founded in 2011, and acquired by Uber in 2020. It offers local delivery of restaurant-prepared meals and other goods. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California. , Postmates operates in 2,940 U.S. ...

, Sean Plaice, and Sam Street. In December 2014, Postmates opened its

application programming interface An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how t ...

to merchants to allow

small business Small businesses are types of corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships which have fewer employees and/or less annual revenue than a regular-sized business or corporation. Businesses are defined as "small" in terms of being able to ap ...

es to compete in the business of consumer goods delivery with larger companies such as

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

. In November 2017, Postmates launched service in Mexico City, its first location outside the United States. It ceased operations in Mexico in December 2019, citing a lack of growth and a desire to focus more on the U.S. market. In 2018, Postmates launched service in 134 new cities in the United States, bringing its total number of cities in the United States up to 550. On December 13, 2018, Postmates announced the development of an autonomous delivery rover.

Funding and acquisition

In 2011, Postmates raised over US$800,000 through involvement with the

Angelpad AngelPad is an American seed-stage startup incubator, launched in September 2010 by Thomas Korte and Carine Magescas with six other former Google employees as mentors. AngelPad provides mentorship, seed money, and networking at two 10-week cours ...

accelerator. In September 2018, Postmates announced that it had raised in additional funding, led by

Tiger Global Management Tiger Global Management, LLC (often referred to as Tiger Global and formerly known as Tiger Technology) is an American investment firm. It mainly focuses on Internet, software, consumer, and financial technology industries. Background and histo ...

. ''Fortune'' reported that the deal valued Postmates at . In January 2019, Postmates raised in investments from

BlackRock BlackRock, Inc. is an American Multinational corporation, multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a Enterprise risk management, risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackR ...

together with

Spark Capital Spark Capital is a venture capital firm in the United States, responsible for early-stage funding startups of consumer, commerce, FinTech, software, frontier, and media sectors. It has branches in San Francisco, Boston, and New York City. Hi ...

, Founders Fund,

Uncork Capital Uncork Capital (formerly known as SoftTech VC) is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California, founded by Jeff Clavier. Considered one of the most active established seed funds in Silicon Valley, it has invested in companies such as ...

, and Slow Ventures. The total valuation of the company reached . In December 2020,

acquired Postmates for .

Criticism

Pay structure

In May 2019, Postmates changed its pay structure for delivery workers, removing a $4-per-job minimum pay guarantee, changing the base rate per job, and decreasing the per-mile rate in some markets. Working Washington, a labor activism group affiliated with the

SEIU Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a labor union representing almost 1.9 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States and Canada. SEIU is focused on organizing workers in three sectors: healthcare (over half of members ...

labor union, urged couriers to refuse jobs with Postmates. The company defended its modified pay structure, citing improved efficiency and its policy of allowing workers to keep all tips without counting them against other compensation.

Allegations of monopolistic behavior

In April 2020, a group of New York residents sued DoorDash, GrubHub, Postmates, and Uber Eats, accusing them of abusing their market power by only listing restaurants on their apps if the restaurant owners signed contracts which include clauses that require prices be the same for dine-in customers as for customers receiving delivery. The plaintiffs stated that this arrangement increases the cost for dine-in customers, as they are required to subsidize the cost of delivery; and that the apps charge “exorbitant” fees, which range from 13% to 40% of revenue, while the average restaurant’s profit ranges from 3% to 9% of revenue. The lawsuit seeks triple damages, including for overcharges, since April 14, 2016 for dine-in and delivery customers in the United States at restaurants using the defendants’ delivery apps. The case is filed in the federal U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York as Davitashvili v GrubHub Inc., 20-cv-3000. A trial date has not yet been set. In March 2022, U. S. District Judge

Lewis A. Kaplan Lewis A. Kaplan (born December 23, 1944) is a United States district judge serving on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He took senior status on February 1, 2011. Education, career, personal life Born in St ...

denied defendants' motion to dismiss.

References

External links

* {{US logistics 2011 establishments in California Online food retailers of the United States Companies based in San Francisco Logistics companies of the United States Transport companies established in 2011 American companies established in 2011 Retail companies established in 2011 Internet properties established in 2011 Online food ordering 2020 mergers and acquisitions Transportation companies based in California Uber acquisitions