Executive Briefing
Unpacking DoorDash’s Caviar deal
What is $410 million buying?
By Dan Frommer on Friday, August 2, 2019 at 5:30 pm
The boom in online food delivery is riding a handful of trends: Easy smartphone-based ordering and dispatching, overall higher spending on restaurant food, the rise of fast-casual, busy urban lifestyles, desk lunches, etc. But so far, whether online food delivery services can be great businesses is still less clear.
So it’s hardly a shock that Square announced yesterday it was leaving the field, selling its Caviar subsidiary — which it acquired five years ago, and reportedly tried to sell in 2016 — to rival DoorDash for $410 million in cash and stock.
DoorDash is basically buying Caviar’s relationships with premium restaurants, its technology, and team, including highly respected leader Gokul Rajaram.
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