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Postmates

Postmates Inc.[2] is an American 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.[3]

, Postmates operates in 2,940 U.S. cities.[4] Postmates primarily competes with Grubhub, DoorDash, and its sister service Uber Eats.

The company has been sued for alleged antitrust price manipulation.[5]

History

Postmates was founded in 2011 by Bastian Lehmann, Sean Plaice, and Sam Street.[6]

In December 2014, Postmates opened its application programming interface to merchants to allow small businesses to compete in the business of consumer goods delivery with larger companies such as Amazon.[7][8][9][10]

In November 2017, Postmates launched its service in Mexico City, its first location outside the United States.[11] It ceased operations in Mexico in December 2019, citing a lack of growth and a desire to focus more on the U.S. market.[12] In 2018, Postmates launched its service in 134 new cities in the United States, bringing its total number of cities in the United States up to 550.[13]

On December 13, 2018, Postmates announced the development of an autonomous delivery rover.[14]

Funding and acquisition

In 2011, Postmates raised over US$800,000 through involvement with the Angelpad accelerator.[15][16]

In September 2018, Postmates announced that it had raised US$300 million in additional funding, led by Tiger Global Management.[17] Fortune reported that the deal valued Postmates at US$1.2 billion.[18]

In January 2019, Postmates raised US$100 million in investments from BlackRock together with Spark Capital, Founders Fund, Uncork Capital, and Slow Ventures. The total valuation of the company reached US$1.85 billion.[19]

In September 2019, GPI Capital led a final round capital raise in Postmates with its Managing Partner, Khai Ha, joining the board.[20]

In December 2020, Uber acquired Postmates for US$2.65 billion.[21][22][23]

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 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.[24]

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 to 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.[25][26][27][28][29] A trial date has not yet been set.[30] In March 2022, U. S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan denied the defendants' motion to dismiss.[31]

See also

External links

References

  1. Postmates Company Profile Craft, retrieved December 9, 2019^
  2. Postmates Inc. :: Delaware (US) :: OpenCorporates OpenCorporates, 2011-06-02, retrieved 2024-04-14^
  3. About Postmates Postmates, retrieved 2015-02-11^
  4. Postmates confidentially files for IPO Reuters, 7 February 2019, retrieved 2019-02-07^
  5. Jonathan Stempel. Grubhub, Uber Eats, Postmates must face diners' lawsuit over U.S. restaurant prices Reuters, 2022-03-31, retrieved 2022-06-13^
  6. Padraig Belton. Location services: How GPS delivery is changing shopping BBC News, 23 December 2014, retrieved 2015-02-11^
  7. Farhad Manjoo. Amazon Not as Unstoppable as It Might Appear The New York Times, 17 December 2014, retrieved 2015-02-11^
  8. Esther Hahn. Will Postmates Dominate Same Day Delivery with Its Open API? sRacked SF, 11 December 2014, retrieved 2015-02-11^
  9. Postmates, Powering On-Demand Logistics Postmates, retrieved 2015-02-11^
  10. Ryan Lawler. Postmates Is Launching An API To Let Third-Party Sellers Offer Local Delivery TechCrunch, December 9, 2014, retrieved 2015-02-11^
  11. Megan Rose Dickey. Postmates launches in first international city TechCrunch, November 15, 2017^
  12. Diego Ore, David Alire, Leslie Adler. So long, Postmates: food delivery service leaves Mexico El Universal English, December 4, 2019, retrieved 2019-12-04^
  13. Taylor Hatmaker. Postmates launches food delivery in 134 additional US cities TechCrunch, October 17, 2018, retrieved 2018-10-18^
  14. Arielle Pardes. Postmates'Quest To Build The Delivery Robot Of The Future Wired, December 13, 2018, retrieved 2018-12-13^
  15. Matthew Lynley. Postmates To Roll Its Way Into London TechCrunch, December 7, 2015, retrieved 2022-03-23^
  16. Steven Loeb. When Postmates was young: the early years VatorNews, 2019-09-13, retrieved 2022-03-23^
  17. Anthony Ha. Postmates raises another $300M, reportedly valued at $1.2B TechCrunch, September 18, 2018, retrieved 2020-03-31^
  18. Polina Marinova. Exclusive: Delivery Startup Postmates Raises $300 Million, Joins Unicorn Club Fortune, September 18, 2018, retrieved 2020-03-31^
  19. Kate Clark. Postmates lines up another $100M ahead of IPO TechCrunch, January 10, 2019, retrieved 2019-01-11^
  20. Kate Clark. Readying an IPO, Postmates secures $225M led by private equity firm GPI Capital TechCrunch, 2019-09-19, retrieved 2024-08-15^
  21. Seth Fiegerman. Uber to buy Postmates for $2.65 billion CNN, July 6, 2020, retrieved 6 July 2020^
  22. Andrew J. Hawkins. Uber acquires meal delivery service Postmates for $2.65 billion The Verge, 2020-07-06, retrieved 2020-07-23^
  23. Darrell Etherington. Uber officially completes Postmates acquisition TechCrunch, December 1, 2020, retrieved 2020-12-01^
  24. Megan Rose Dickey. Postmates workers want minimum delivery guarantees and at least $15 per hour TechCrunch, May 20, 2019, retrieved 2019-04-21^
  25. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6890558/DAVITASHVILI-v-Grubhub-ET-AL.txt 2020^
  26. Bobby Allyn. Restaurants Are Desperate — But You May Not Be Helping When You Use Delivery Apps NPR, 2020-05-14, retrieved 2020-05-20^
  27. Ethan Baron. DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub and Postmates make restaurant meals cost more: lawsuit - Four firms' rise has 'come at great cost to American society,' suit claims Mercury News, 2020-04-14, retrieved 2020-05-19^
  28. Jonathon Stempel. Grubhub, DoorDash, Postmates, Uber Eats are sued over restaurant prices amid pandemic Reuters, 2020-04-13, retrieved 2020-05-19^
  29. Chris Dolmetsch. GrubHub, Doordash Accused in Suit of Pushing Prices Higher Bloomberg News, 2020-04-13, retrieved 2020-05-19^
  30. Court Listener 2020-07-28, retrieved 2020-07-28^
  31. Davitashvili v. Grubhub Inc., 20-cv-3000 (LAK) S.D.N.Y., March 30, 2022, retrieved 2022-06-24^