DoorDash swallows rival Caviar

Square's investors appear to have thought Caviar was worth a lot more than the $410 million worth of cash and stock DoorDash paid for the delivery company, with shares of Square falling as much as 8% in after-hours trading. More on the red-hot delivery industry in Business Insider:

3rd Party Delivery errrrr I am not so sure. How much margin is there in a taco anyway$$$ Recently I had a discussion with two major clients in the restaurant space. Both were commenting on the “new-new” of home delivery via Grubhub, DoorDash, etc. ? Like Amazon in the retail space, home deliver 3rd party services may offer short term spikes in revenue, but in the long run it will absolutely ruin the restaurant bricks and mortar business, eroding foot traffic, margin and in the process lose control of your most important asset, your customer data. Of course "some" data will be shared but most of the analytics regarding the Why and the timing of the "WHEN" will be controlled by a third party. ? Work with your clients on specific marketing methodologies to push back and stop losing complete control of their customer. Restore balance for their in-store sales and margin. If you intuitively recognize the potential downside of “3rd party home delivery” there are legitimate marketing alternatives to regain control of your customer. #marketing #delivery #clients #sales #branding

Last-mile food delivery service DoorDash is set to acquire food delivery service Caviar — the food-ordering platform from mobile payments company Square Inc. — in a deal estimated to be worth $410 million in cash and DoorDash preferred stock. The acquisition is set to be finalized later in 2019.

Another deal in the food delivery space as it consolidates. The US market is consolidating into 4 major players - 3 newer entrants (Uber Eats, DoorDash, Postmates) and 1 incumbent (Seamless-GrubHub, which was a first mover by more than a decade)! It appears Seamless-GrubHub continues to lose share and I believe Lyft should make a move to partner with them and create a joint reward program to drive volume both for Lyft Ridehailing and also Seamless-GrubHub orders. Open Table (announced I believe) and Resy (recently acquired by Amex) may also try to get into the food delivery space more aggressively, but Lyft can carve a niche out in this space via partnerships. In my mind Uber Eats still the player to beat and I believe will be the net winner over DoorDash eventually in terms of market share.

Does this mean your lunches will be delivered even faster?

Beyond excited to announce that DoorDash has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Caviar. We can’t wait to partner with Gokul Rajaram and his impressive team at Caviar to build a unique brand with the broadest selection for consumers. #hypergrowth https://lnkd.in/gyYze2A

DoorDash is buying food delivery service Caviar from Square for $410 million. A DoorDash spox tells me the services will remain as individual brands for the time being, but the co. will ultimately do what's best for each brand -- whether that means combining them, or keeping them separate. https://lnkd.in/e3w-qjc @CNN