Uber agrees to buy Delivery Hero in €13 billion cash offer

Uber and an affiliate have agreed to acquire Delivery Hero through a voluntary takeover offer valuing the Berlin-based delivery company at €13.0 billion on a fully diluted equity basis. Uber is offering Delivery Hero shareholders €41.50 per share in cash, a transaction that would expand the combined mobility and delivery platform to 99 countries.

The companies did not disclose expected closing timing, financing arrangements, revenue figures, or profitability metrics in the announcement. For operators and investors in delivery, the headline number is the reach: Delivery Hero operates in about 65 countries across Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, giving Uber a larger footprint in markets where food delivery and quick commerce are still being built out.

Delivery Hero was founded in 2011 as a food delivery company and now runs its own delivery platform across four continents. The company has also pushed into quick commerce, offering grocery and household goods delivery in under one hour, and in many cases within 20 to 30 minutes, according to the companies.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said Delivery Hero has built strong local brands in fast-growing delivery markets. He said combining the companies would allow Uber to offer delivery to more customers while creating additional opportunities for merchants and couriers. Those benefits remain company claims until the deal closes and integration details are made public.

Delivery Hero CEO and co-founder Niklas Östberg framed the deal as a way to extend the company’s local food delivery, quick commerce and “Everyday App” strategy. He said Uber’s global mobility and delivery platform made it the right partner for Delivery Hero’s next stage.

Germany commitments are part of the package

Uber has said it will keep Delivery Hero’s headquarters in Berlin and make no changes to its Berlin workforce until at least 2029. The company also committed to use commercially reasonable efforts to invest €2 billion in Germany through 2031.

That planned investment would focus on building Uber’s local corporate workforce, expanding its business across Germany, and launching autonomous vehicle deployments and partnerships with German automakers, according to the announcement. The wording leaves Uber room on how much of that investment is ultimately deployed, since the commitment is tied to commercially reasonable efforts rather than a hard spending schedule.

Östberg said the acquisition and planned investment in Germany show the strength of Europe’s technology sector. The companies did not provide a breakdown of how the €2 billion would be allocated among hiring, business expansion, autonomous vehicle work or automotive partnerships.

For Uber, the proposed acquisition would add a large international delivery network rather than a narrow product extension. For Delivery Hero shareholders, the offer is a cash exit at a stated €41.50 per share. The next questions are execution-related: how the companies integrate local brands, how much overlap exists across markets, and whether Uber can turn a broader country footprint into better unit economics. The announcement did not address those operating details.

This story draws on original reporting from Tech.eu.